What is SmashWords.com?

The Monday, “What Is That?” Series today features SmashWords.com.

The weekly “What Is That?” Series highlights new publishing technologies in the ever-changing publishing world, especially for independent novelists. Nonfiction authors will find much value in these tools, too.

Back to SmashWords… A disclaimer: I don’t have any books uploaded into their system, yet. This Monday series is inspired by my own curiosity and thirst for the cool ways I can get my work out into the world.

If any of you have some experience with SmashWords, good or bad, please do chime in and let us know!

In their words:

Smashwords is an ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers and readers. We offer multi-format, DRM-free ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.

For readers, Smashwords provides an opportunity to discover new voices in all categories and genres of the written word. Once you register, the site offers useful tools for search, discovery and personal library-building, and each week we add new features based on feedback from members.

At Smashwords, our authors and publishers have complete control over the sampling, pricing and marketing of their written works.

Smashwords is ideal for publishing novels, short fiction, poetry, personal memoirs, monographs, non-fiction, research reports, essays, or other written forms that haven’t even been invented yet.

It’s free to publish and distribute with Smashwords.

You gotta love that free part!

Though it’s free to publish and distribute, SmashWords does take a percentage of your sales. From their How to Publish page: “You receive 85 percent of the net sales proceeds from your titles (70.5% for affiliate sales).”

What have you experienced using SmashWords.com as a reader or an author?