Proud of Smashwords

I’m really proud of Smashwords.

Recently they have been out there making some ground breaking things happen.

They fought Paypal on censorship and won.

They have negotiated with Califa, a consortium 220 Californian libraries, to form a partnership to distribute Smashwords eBooks in libraries and to give member libraries the ability to let patrons publish eBooks through Smashwords.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/smashwords-califa-to-let-library-patrons-self-publish-books_b53675

And today they announced a distribution agreement with Page Foundry, a developer of mobile ebook store apps for Android tablets and smart phones.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/06/smashwords-adds-page-foundry-as-new.html

This agreement will mean that all Premium Catalog books will automatically go to Page Foundry unless the writer opts out, or unless the title is unpublished. ‘Premium catalog’ is their term for ebooks that have no errors, good cover images, are properly set out, have a proper copyright notice and an ISBN number. As I understand it, Apple won’t take you unless you have all those boxes ticked. Apple also insists that the price end in 99cents. See the hoops I have to jump through these days? No, I'm joking. All readers deserve well set out, professional looking books, surely?

Good on you Smashwords. Keep up the good fight.