Borders' Bankruptcy, eBooks, and Evaporating Physical Shelf-Space

Jeff Trachtenberg and Paul Sonne, Wall Street Journal:

A bankruptcy filing by Borders Group Inc., which could come within days, will mean fewer places for consumers to buy books, which in turn is expected to speed the pace of online and e-book sales.

Borders has been putting the finishing touches on a store-closure program that could eliminate more than one-third of its 674 stores as part of a Chapter 11 restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Once physical shelf space is gone, it's gone forever," says Mark Coker, chief executive of Smashwords Inc., an e-book publishing and distribution platform based in Los Gatos, Calif. "If you remove books from our towns and villages and malls, there will be less opportunity for the serendipitous discovery of books. And that will make it tougher to sell books." ...

Smashwords Adopts Agency Model

Smashwords blog: "Our authors and publishers spoke (and some wrote, screamed, begged and politely asked), and we listened. Effective today, all Smashwords retailers are pricing Smashwords books at the price set by the author or publisher. No more discounting. It also means we have significantly increased the royalties we pay our authors and publishers. ..."

The Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success

Very valuable advice from Mark Coker of Smashwords: "This past weekend at the Self Publishing Book Expo in New York, I presented my Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. I embedded the presentation below for your Powerpointing pleasure. The presentation builds on a previous presentation on how the rise of indie ebooks will transform the future of publishing. ..."

New Smashwords Style Guide & Meatgrinder Blades

Mark Coker, Smashwords: "I released a new revision to the Smashwords Style Guide that makes it easier to produce, publish and distribute a great-looking multi-format ebook with Smashwords. In parallel, in the last 30 days we developed, tested and introduced new EPUB and MOBI Meatgrinder conversion blades that give authors and publishers better control over the final look and feel of their ebooks. ... The new Guide draws upon our experience helping over 8,500 authors publish nearly 20,000 books at Smashwords. We analyzed the most common formatting problems and then enhanced the Style Guide's instructions to make it easier for authors to use Microsoft Word to create higher quality source files."

New Smashwords/Diesal Strategic Partnership

Book Trade News:

Smashwords, the leading eBook publishing and distribution platform, and the Diesel eBook Store, the world's largest independent eBook retailer, have announced two eBook distribution agreements that will expand eBook publishing, distribution and sales opportunities for thousands of authors.

The agreement is comprised of two components. For the first part of the agreement, Smashwords will distribute its Premium Catalog of over 11,000 Smashwords eBooks to the Diesel eBook Store. Smashwords books will begin appearing in the Diesel eBook Store two weeks from today.

For the second part of the agreement, Diesel has selected Smashwords to power the new Diesel Publishing Portal, where indie authors, and publishers with fewer than 100 published titles, can utilize Smashwords to supply their books to Diesel.