Wattpad, the world’s most popular ebook community, and Smashwords, the leading ebook publishing and distribution platform, have announced a partnership that will open up new publishing opportunities for thousands of indie authors.
Under the terms of the agreement, Wattpad and Smashwords will cross-promote each other’s services and have added integration so that Wattpad users can sell books via Smashwords and Smashwords authors can promote free works on Wattpad, including, works-in-progress, complete works, or serial ebooks on Wattpad.
Wattpad operates a social network for writers to connect with readers and share what they have written. Wattpad receives over 10 million visits a month and many of the stories on Wattpad have millions of reads.
“The Wattpad community loves to read and interact with writers. Readers on our site comment on a story once every seven seconds, making Wattpad a solution for writers looking to increase their presence and fan base,” explains Allen Lau, CEO and co-founder of Wattpad. “Our partnership with Smashwords provides our authors with an important outlet to distribute and sell their finished works and then cross-promote these works across Smashwords and Wattpad.”
“Wattpad represents a fabulous training ground where authors can hone their craft and prepare their writing for distribution and sale at Smashwords,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “Current Smashwords authors can benefit from Wattpad as well by using it to share stories, gain feedback and develop fan followings.”
Smashwords publishes and distributes over 13,000 original ebooks from 6,000 authors and hundreds of small independent publishers. To publish at Smashwords, Wattpad authors simply upload their finished manuscript to Smashwords as a Microsoft Word file, formatted to the requirements of the Smashwords Style Guide. Smashwords automatically converts the book into nine ebook formats, and makes it available for immediate sale online at a price set by the author. Smashwords then evaluates the book for inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog, which is the catalog Smashwords distributes to major ebook retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Apple iPad iBookstore.
Both Smashwords and Wattpad are free for writers.
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