Archive for smashwords
Smashwords Releases Data from eBook Sales Study
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Yield graph courtesy of Smashwords.com blog
The ebook distribution site Smashwords, spearheaded by founder Mark Coker, is often at the forefront of what is shaping digital publishing. Whether it’s making a free platform available to self-published authors or helping writers find industry professionals to work with them, the site is much more than just a portal for purchasing inexpensive digital books.
Today, the site’s blog featured news of a recent survey that Smashwords conducted, one which provides valuable feedback on ebook sales and delivery. Through analyzing the components behind what Coker calls Viral Catalysts, or in other words, the things that make a book more likely to be discovered, the survey results shed some light on what is important for authors to know about their own books.
One of Coker’s key discoveries in the survey was the discrepancy in book sales from one title to the next. As he points out, most books only sell marginally, but the ones that are considered “bestsellers” sell really, really well. Since this same piece of information is true for both traditionally and self-published books, is has to be asked: why is that? The strange dynamic is that, as a book moves up in ranking due to its sales, it is even more likely to sell even more copies due to that higher ranking. Therefore, books that initially sell well continue to rank higher due to customer activity.
The length of books and their titles seemed inordinately related. Longer books in terms of word count sell better than shorter books, but books with shorter titles sold better than books with longer titles.
Of course, the most important information from the survey for many authors will be pricing. There has been a lot of discussion and speculation over the years as to what constitutes the right price for an ebook, especially one by a self-published author. The results of Smashwords’ survey showed a few crucial pieces of information for authors looking to price their books in order to reach a maximum readership.
While the data showed that $2.99 seemed to be the most popular price for authors to set, additional data asked the question if $3.99 was not actually a more effective price point in terms of finding new consumers interested in purchasing the book. One of the most important details, however, is Coker’s assessment that self-published ebook authors actually come out ahead in terms of earnings over traditionally published authors.
“Indie ebook authors are earning royalty percentages that are 3-5 times higher than what traditionally published authors earn. Publishers are overpricing their books relative to indie ebook alternatives. This means that indie authors can reach more readers AND earn more money selling lower priced books at higher unit volumes all the while earning more per book sold than traditionally published authors at higher prices. The significance of these economic dynamics cannot be overstated.”
One point that Coker stressed throughout the results report is that every book is a unique product and the the variables that determine its success are relative. Only by understanding how readers respond to an author’s work can the author begin to make informed choices for his work.
A Little Competition for Smashwords?
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When the free ebook distribution platform Smashwords was created, critics claimed that it was nothing more than a portal for lousy ebooks to flood the market while supporters countered that it was the first genuine concept in stripping away the artificial barriers to publication. The founder, Mark Coker, stated quite freely that if a horrible ebook–horrible in terms of the writing, the formatting, or both–was published, the readers would be the ones to decide not to buy it. But for Coker’s vision, book publishing was for everyone who wanted to invest their time and talent in the process.
A few million ebooks later, Smashwords is a widely-respected and highly-profitable company that has launched a number of authors and has had a surprising number of titles distributed through their platform reach the bestseller lists. It has developed partnerships with the major online retailers to distribute vetted books to those retail marketplaces with the click of a button, and its model continues to be popular with authors, both indie and traditionally published.
Now, a new company has arrived a little late on the digital publishing scene and claims to be the solution to the problems created by Smashwords. Draft2Digital, who issued a press release stating that it was the “long-awaited alternative to Smashwords,” offers… exactly the same service.
Without indicating what was so frustrating about Smashwords that its company is the “long-awaited alternative,” Draft2Digital does provide a little healthy competition in the free ebook uploading marketplace, while still distributing the book to the typical retailers. Draft2Digital does claim to be working on allowing authors to choose CreateSpace as one of its distribution options, which is alarming; by its own FAQ admission, “e-books and print books are fundamentally different media,” yet the site also states that a Word document can be formatted as an ePub within minutes, and that same uploaded file can be formatted for CreateSpace exactly the same way. However, Draft2Digital admits that the paperback edition of a one-click upload is “a one-size-fits-all format for CreateSpace” will not contain things like headers or footers, or the options to select the page size.
As for the sticky ePub-vs-MOBI issue of uploading an ebook to both Barnes and Noble and Amazon, Draft2Digital states that it allows authors to upload a Word document without having to use that pesky “style guide” found on Smashwords and that their people will convert it to an ePub within minutes, regardless of the formatting used in the Word document. According to Draft2Digital, “Our conversion process creates a high-quality epub for us to distribute to the sales channels you choose. But that’s only the beginning of D2D’s service. Once you’ve uploaded your document, you’ll be able to download it as a .mobi file for Kindle reading.” That doesn’t entirely explain how the ebook is distributed and sold to Kindle customers, but the site states that Amazon is one of the vendors authors can select.
Without having been able to locate specific titles created and distributed by Draft2Digital for comparison purposes, the major concern with the model is how “easy” they claim this process to be. eBook formatting is by no means an easy process, at least not if the author wants a professional-quality, non-frustrating-to-read edition. Formatting a Word document for professional-quality print-on-demand is equally time consuming and requires some know-how. And openly stating the authors no longer need to stick to the technical conventions of Smashwords’ style guide creates dangerous ground for ebook quality.
Overall, competition is generally a good thing because it causes all of the companies involved to up their games and ensure that they are providing the best possible service to their customers. But that only works in everyone’s favor if the end result is actually a superior product and experience.
Amazon Owns Goodreads… What Now?
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So far, the official press releases and arranged interviews about Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads have had a chance to make their way to the news front. An equal number of readers, if not more, have taken to social media to share their concerns and criticisms. But one surprising response has come from industry insider Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords. Coker responded to several questions from GoodEReader about what this may mean for publishers, authors, and reading consumers.
When asked about how a deal like this stands to have an impact on the all-important status of book discovery, Coker felt that this was actually a positive opportunity for for book fans.
“This is a brilliant acquisition for Amazon, for a few reasons,” explained Coker. “It allows Amazon to forge closer relationships with customers and indie authors alike. This is important, because customers and indie authors ARE the future of publishing. In customer and author-recruitment, Amazon just gained an advantage. It prevents Goodreads from falling into the hands of a competitor. It gives Amazon a multi-year advantage in discoverability. Between Amazon and Goodreads, I don’t think any other retailer will have access to such a depth of discoverability information. It means Amazon has better data by which to match readers with books they want to read, and better data for identifying books that deserve merchandising promotion. It means Amazon will have better data to make customers happy, and better data to sell more books, which makes authors and publishers happy. Goodreads controls the eyeballs of millions of readers, so these are eyeballs Amazon can start funneling in the direction of Amazon. I see a lot of opportunity for Goodreads to integrate Amazon buylinks everywhere, and the opportunity for Amazon to integrate Goodreads reviews and social aspects of Goodreads into Amazon.”
One of the key concerns readers have had at both Amazon and Goodreads, and will undoubtedly continue to cause concern under the new partnership, is the validity of book reviews in a climate where accusations have been hurled about paid reviews, trolls, and worse. Coker actually expressed optimism that by working together, Amazon and Goodreads would actually support the opportunity for genuine reviewing.
“This is a win for both Amazon and Goodreads. I don’t have any criticism for either of them on the reviews front. Since they’re two of the most popular sites for book discovery, it means they’re going to be the biggest targets of those who try to game the reviews. If anything, Amazon will now have more data to draw upon, which will give them a better ability to detect, isolate and remove the gamers. For example, if a book averages 3 stars with 100 reviews at Goodreads, and a swarm of 20 5-star reviews come in at Amazon, they’ll know something’s amiss because the Goodreads data suggests that’s NOT a 5-star book.”
Coker’s most supportive reaction, however, was reserved for consumers and readers who may not be quite as optimistic about Amazon’s buyout as other entities might be. After all, some of the more instantaneous criticisms of the news were that Amazon is once again building up its “evil empire” status by buying up one of the most well-known book discovery sites.
“On the immediate front, I think we’ll see some changes. Sony and Kobo are in a tough bind, because they use Goodreads reviews. Goodreads, a trusted partner, has now become Goodreads the fox in the hen house. There’s no way to sugar-coat the gravity of their problem. These retailers have lost control of their reviews. It means Amazon owns these reviews, and any branding benefit Amazon’s competitors give Goodreads – or any valuable customers they turn on to Goodreads – only benefits the one company (Amazon) who’s working so hard to put these very retailers out of business. These retailers need to quickly wean themselves off of Goodreads. It won’t be easy, because without Goodreads, they’ll have a lot of books with few or no reviews. They’ll have weaker discoverability. Every day that Kobo and Sony continue with Goodreads is another day they help Amazon’s discoverability data while neglecting their own.
“Amazon wins either way. If Sony and Kobo stay on, they benefit Amazon. If they drop Goodreads, the breadth and quality of their reviews will diminish, which means their ability to match customers with the right books diminishes, which means Amazon wins again.
“Luckily for Apple and B&N, they own their own reviews.
“Longer term, we’ll see tighter integration between Goodreads and Amazon. We’ll see Amazon begin to squeeze out competing buylinks to other retailers. It’s inevitable that Amazon will start neutering or disadvantaging the buy links to their competitors. If they keep them, they’ll probably add a toll over and above the normal affiliate relationships. This means Amazon stands to gain an ever-increasing share of each book dollar’s pie, even if the books are sold at Amazon competitors.
From the perspective of authors who benefit from Goodread’s discovery, these authors will probably see increased integration with KDP, and possibly increased incentives to enroll their books in KDP Select, Amazon’s exclusive program. Imagine, for example, if KDP Select authors were offered increased discoverability at Goodreads as a perk for KDP Select enrollment. This could further tilt the playing field in Amazon’s favor, and hobble competing retailers’ ability to attract books from indie authors.
“So today is a great day for Amazon, and a well-deserved reward for the incredible team at Goodreads. But for Amazon’s competing retailers, it’s not a happy day.
“The acquisition may also cause Amazon’s competitors to reevaluate their own merger and acquisition strategy as it pertains to discoverability, and customer and author recruitment. I’ve got to think that B&N, Apple and Kobo are wishing they had snagged Goodreads first, if only to keep them away from Amazon.”
Smashwords/Douglas County Deal Required a Lot of Work
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Previously we reported on Douglas County acquiring 10,000 self-published ebooks from Smashwords. Now, an article in The Digital Shift outlines how much work was required to complete the deal as the parties had to weed, filter, and tweak a list of indie titles to develop the optimal collection for library patrons.
“It was a lot more complicated for us than we expected,” said Smashwords founder Mark Coker, “We’re giving libraries the option to slice and dice by multiple categories and multiple filters. And, along the way we discovered some cool ways to surface titles more accurately, that we think better reflect the interests of readers.”
The list began with Smashwords’ top 10,000 bestsellers—titles that have proven their appeal through sales. However, DCL and Smashwords soon realized that relying exclusively on a sales ranking could cause problems, such as leaving popular book series incomplete. Focusing instead on bestselling authors, and simply purchasing everything they had written, wasn’t an ideal solution, either. Hypothetically, what if an author had published 1,000 books, each of which sold only a few copies,” Coker said.
Smashwords developed a new mathematical ratings model and then based the bestseller list on it. To this was applied specific filters requested by Douglas. The filters included price caps and limits on specific genres, the exclusion of certain genres, such as erotica, and special dealing with such items as romance titles.
“There were just some really racy covers,” Nemechek explained. “As you know, our catalogs are very visual now. And it’s not that we don’t buy that stuff, but I was afraid that there would be so much of it, and that it was going to flood our system. So I was a little more careful with covers than I probably otherwise would have been… We usually select erotica based on professional reviews or sometimes patron demand. But we try to sift through that stuff more carefully. Given that we had 10,000 titles to work with, excluding the erotica would give us more science fiction, mystery, romance, and the genre fiction that our readers really love.”
Self-Published eBooks Reach Amazon UK Top 100 Bestseller List
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If there was still any doubt about the potential for success and recognition for self-published authors, a recent press release issued by Amazon UK has very nearly put it to rest. The announcement, made yesterday out of Amazon’s Luxembourg office, stated that fifteen of the top 100 bestselling books on Amazon UK last year were self-published using the company’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform.
According to the statement, “Since KDP launched on Amazon.co.uk, 61 KDP authors have sold over 50,000 copies of their books; 12 authors have sold in excess of 100,000 copies. With Amazon’s popular 70% royalty option KDP authors have the opportunity to make even more money from the books they sell – 50 authors have earned in excess of £50,000, and 11 of these have earned more than £100,000. Royalties earned through borrows from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library are not included in this figure and if included would make the earnings even higher.”
The top ten KDP titles were:
- “Love… From Both Sides” by Nick Spalding
- “Only the Innocent” by Rachel Abbott
- “Love… And Sleepless Nights” by Nick Spalding
- “One Cold Night” by Katia Lief
- “Locked In” by Kerry Wilkinson
- “Angel Killer” by Andrew Mayne
- “Touch” by Mark Sennen
- “Taunting the Dead” by Mel Sherratt
- “The Tea Planter’s Daughter” by Janet MacLeod Trotter
- “Here She Lies” by Katia Lief
“KDP enables independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the literary world and it’s been such a huge success for authors and customers,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, Kindle EU, in the press release. “Millions of people worldwide opened new Kindles this Christmas, which is great news for authors as people purchase more books once they own a Kindle. Kindle book sales already exceed print sales at Amazon.co.uk and we expect to see even more people discover new books and the benefits of reading on Kindle in 2013.”
If the popularity of both Amazon digital publishing options–KDP and KDP Select–coupled with the growth of Barnes and Noble’s PubIt!, Kobo’s Writing Life, and Smashwords are any indication, this won’t be the last time indie authors climb up the bestseller lists and claim a number of spots for their titles. And if the reader fans are also any indication of the willingness of consumers to branch out and take a risk on self-published authors, the shift may go even further than a handful of spots peppered throughout the list.
Douglas County Libraries Acquire 10K eBooks from Smashwords
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Once again Smashwords is showing up the mainstream publishers. According to ALA TechSource, the Douglas County Libraries acquired 10,000 titles of self-published ebooks from Smashwords. This means that DCL will now own a total of 21,000 ebooks. The titles purchased from Smashwords include fiction, romance, mystery, and science fiction. Rather than leasing ebooks from third-party vendors, the library purchases the books directly and owns them.
Jamie LaRue, director of DCL, said, “We’re eager to connect our readers to fresh streams of digital content… Smashword’s average price per title [about $4] allows us to do that more readily than we could from the big publishers [now charging as much as $84 per ebook]. This looks like the beginning of a wonderful friendship.”
Once again, Smashwords takes steps to reform digital publishing.
2012 Was the Year of the Indie…What Now?
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It took long enough, but several sources have finally declared 2012 to have been the year of the Indie Author. From their declarations, what set 2012 apart seems to have been the reduced stigma in being a self-published author, the volume of high-quality works that are being brought to market without the efforts of the traditional publishing industry, and the banding together as a community of writers who are taking matters into their own hands.
Terri Giuliano-Long, author of In Leah’s Wake and writing for the Huffington Post’s blog, outlined some of the factors that have helped self-publishing climb out of its early days of the vanity press into the explosion brought on be e-reading, and evolve into its current state of being a viable alternative for talented, career-minded writers. She cites high-quality, user-friendly e-publishing platforms that let authors upload their content, as well as a shift in the perceptions towards self-published books that have meant publicists and bookstore owners are now more likely to take on indie authors.
Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, blogged his year-in-review report on the ebook distribution platform’s status, sharing that the company has grown since its launch in 2008 to include more than 58,000 authors and publishing platforms. Some of the most exciting news to happen for the company came in the realm of ebook lending, establishing partnerships for public libraries to make its digital catalog available for library patrons to borrow, a welcome strategy as libraries continue to feel the frustration of not having more publisher support for ebook lending and have therefore turned to indie authors to fill their virtual shelves.
One interesting comment from a reader on the HuffPo blog pointed out that some of this astounding growth can actually be attributed to the consumers who have taken advantage of the huge drops in price on e-reader devices, now that more competition has altered the market. Where the Amazon Kindle was over $300 at its introduction, some versions of the device can be had for less than $100; even those readers who prefer a tablet for its multi-functional capabilities can find an Android powered tablet for less than half the cost of the lowest priced iPad.
This consumer interaction cannot be dismissed, as ultimately, it is the readers who have helped further self-publishing. If consumers were not willing to risk their funds on the indie authors and were not willing to spend their time seeking out new titles—as opposed to just wandering into a bookstore and selecting whichever books had been given prominent display space—the authors would have no audience.
With so many different entities contributing to the success of self-publishing—authors, industry professionals, and consumers—2013 stands to be a fairly enlightening year for all of book publishing.
Smashwords Direct Offers ePub Uploads for Indie Authors
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Smashwords has just unveiled a new system that finally allows authors to upload their ebooks in ePub format. This new capability allows publishers or authors to upload their own professionally formatted ePub files for sale at the Smashwords store, and for distribution to the Smashwords retail distribution network.
When you upload your own ePub book it is important to note that your book will not be converted to other popular formats. Smashwords is well known for automatically converting your Word document to Mobi, PDF, ePub, and a myriad of other book types. A professionally formatted book will only be in ePub format but considering its the the most popular one, you should be just fine.
ePub creation allows for a ton of flexibility and different publishers/authors have different methodologies. You can use Adobe InDesign, Nisus writer pro, OpenOffice, Jutoh, Atlantis, Epubmaker, LibreOffice, Writer2epub, Scrivener, HTML, Sigil, and Calibre. From the limited beta test, the company noticed Sigil and Calibre were often cited to be the most popular platform to test ebooks.
Smashwords is one of the largest indie submission stores out there. The company gives authors who publish with them a free ISBN number, which is a pre-requsitie for companies such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, and Kobo. The company will distribute your book to all the major online bookstores, giving you more visibility and traction. All sales could be tracked within Smashwords and voids the need to manually check out your sales dashboard with each company.
Check out the full documentation on Smashwords Direct and make sure you keep up to date on the company’s new style guide.
Smashwords iBookstore Sales Skyrocket over Christmas
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This is great news for the self-publishing company! According to the Smashwords blog, sales the day after Christmas were 76% higher from the same day a week earlier and sales for December 27 increased 65% over the same period a year ago. These figures were aggregated over the 125,000 Smashwords titles available in the iBookstore.
Even more encouraging is the chart above, which shows iBookstore stales for the last 24 months. (Note the steady rise.) The blog says: “If previous seasonal trends stay true, we’ll see a record December, followed by a strong January, and then sales will moderate but probably settle in at a stepped-up level compared to October or November.”
Congrats to Mark Coker of Smashwords, who single-handedly created a whole new category of publishing.
Smashwords’ CEO Mark Coker on the Tsunami of Self-Publishing
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Mark Coker published his own predictions for publishing in 2013 on the Smashwords’ blog earlier last week, and it is quite a comprehensive list. With over twenty-one separate items that will have an effect on publishing and book selling in the next twelve months. GoodeReader spoke with Coker about some of the specific observations he made about where the industry may be headed.
“No doubt that we’re going to see the number of self-published ebooks explode. One, the traditional industry is going to be less capable of supporting authors and legitimate authors are going to realize they have other options. Next, there will be a flood of authors wsho were previously holding off because they were still believing and holding onto the stigma. Then there will be the next generation of writers who reach that point where they have completed their manuscripts and they’re ready to think about publishing.
“We’re also going to see the expansion of the global market. Self-publishing took off first in English, that’s where the first wave of indie authors came from, but now we’re going to see a new wave coming from Latin America in Spanish, Portuguese from Brazil, and in the year ahead we’re going to see a lot of expansion into Asia. Each of those markets will follow kind of the same progression that we did in the United States, where the authors in those markets are still more pre-conditioned that the only reputable way to publish is through traditional publishing. They are all going to start on this path when they see the stigma is declining.”
Coker spoke at length in the interview and in his blog post about the potential impact on books that the current state of change within the Big six is having.
“I’m disappointed that the publishers are merging. I don’t think it will be good for the publishers and I definitely don’t think it will be good for the authors. They are best served when we have a vibrant ecosystem. We have all of these great, smart passionate people working to create, improve, and promote books. I’m concerned that what’s happening with this consolidation is that it’s not happening because publishers think they can grow their businesses, but because the finance people are taking over. I think these companies are going to become ruled by the finance depts and the editorial depts—whom I consider to be the heart and soul of publishing—are going to lose power. This is actually a new thing, that the acquiring editors are losing control. It’s more difficult than ever for a passionate editor to acquire a book because they’ve got to sell that book internally, running a gauntlet within the company before they can take a chance on an author. We’re going to see publishers taking fewer chances. We might even see them publishing fewer titles as a result of it, or they may try to start publishing more titles while making a smaller investment in each author.”
Coker’s explanation of the future growth of self-publishing hinges both on the state of traditional publishing coupled with the self-published authors who are honoring their readers with quality content, something that only the highly successful writers tend to be doing.
“This to me is all very exciting. It’s very good for books and for the industry. We’ve already seen it now for the last five years. Opening the flood gates on a global basis is going to allow works to be published and discovered by readers that would never have been published before. We saw a trickle of books at first, then it became a stream then a river then a flood. The future will be a tsunami of books.”
Self-Publishing Gains Ground, Acceptance
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Photo courtesy of ebookbotics.com
Publisher’s Weekly posted a recap article of the recent Miami Book Fair, and went to great lengths to expand on the importance that was placed on self-publishing at this year’s event. As one of the most respected book events in the country and celebrating almost thirty years of books and authors, featuring information sessions on a publication process that was once relegated to vanity press and desperate writers means it is now becoming the norm.
This year’s event featured a panel with some of the biggest names in professional indie publishing, including Mark Coker of Smashwords and Matt Cavner of Vook, among others. The panel included talks not only on why an author might consider self-publishing, but also some of the key considerations that still must be understood by the author in order to be happy with the outcome.
The prominence that self-publishing is gaining has meant greater accessibility to “undiscovered” authors, but also greater creative and marketing control of their books by even those authors with an established audience. While some might see the inclusion of discussions on self-publishing as meaning that it is now an acceptable alternative to traditional publishing, others have argued that eventually the process by which a book comes to market will be more author-centric across the board as self-publishing surpasses traditional.
PW will be including a full write up of the panel discussion in a December feature article.
New Bowker Study on eBooks Shows Self-Publishing Growth
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Bowker, the ProQuest group that supplies book information to publishers, libraries, and booksellers and is the official US agency for identifying ISBN numbers, released the results today of its most recent study on self-published books, both print and digital. According to the release on the study, available self-published books now total more than 235,000, nearly a triple increase over the course of the last six years.
“Self-publishing is now supported by a sophisticated and highly accessible support structure,” said Beat Barblan, Director of Identifier Services for Bowker, an affiliate of information powerhouse ProQuest. “It’s provided everyone who has a story to tell with a method for sharing it and leveled the playing field to an unprecedented degree. This is no longer just vanity presses at work – self-publishing is out of the dark corners and making its way into the mainstream. Notable success stories include a number of self-published authors landing their titles onto the prestigious New York Times bestseller list for ebook fiction.”
Last year, news from Bowker showed that self-published books accounted for nearly 43% of print books. Also, ebooks are increasing in number among self-published titles, as digital publishing platforms become more common and more user friendly.
“Bowker’s research into self-publishing was prompted by an earlier study that showed 2011’s 148,424 self-published print books represented about 43 percent of that year’s total traditional print output and contributed to the first significant expansion in print production since 2007. While print accounts for 63 percent of self-published books, e-books are gaining fast. E-book production in 2011 was 87,201, up 129 percent over 2006. Print grew 33 percent in the same period.”
Amazon’s CreateSpace holds the top position for print production of self-published titles, with 39% of the industry in 2011, while Smashwords produced more self-published ebooks than any other platform with 47% of the market. Penguin’s Author Solutions and Lulu rounded out the top platforms.
Ebook Seller Zola to Launch with Exclusive Content
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In a climate in which internet start ups come and go every day, how can a brand-new ebook seller plan to compete with the likes of established retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or even with smaller-but-popular sites like Smashwords?
The best way is to not compete at all.
Zola Books, which formed in September of last year and will launch on October 10th, is taking a whole new route to garnering consumer fans and getting noticed. The new ebook platform will focus on providing exclusive digital content that can’t be found elsewhere, especially among the bigger, more established platforms, beginning with its first release, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Niffenegger was one of the early author-investors in Zola, along with Josh Bazell and Chandler Burr.
One of Zola’s goals from earlier this summer was to lure indie authors, much like other retailers have done, but also to help indie bookstores by replacing the Google Books program that stand-alone brick and mortars used to benefit from. An article for Digital Book World in July did specifically mention that Zola was originally not setting its sights on a self-publishing upload model, but that it was considering working with Smashwords to make self-published content available.
