December 28, 2012 - Smashwords Direct alpha testing underway. We're preparing to launch Smashwords Direct, our direct .epub upload option. One year ago in my 2011 annual year-in-review over at the Smashwords Blog, we made a commitment to launch SWD in the second half of 2012. We're working to fulfill that commitment. We're nearing completion of a beta version of SWD. The first iteration will enable those of you with professionally designed .epub files to replace your current Smashwords-generated .epub with another .epub. It'll also allow authors to upload .epub files instead of Word .doc files. We're inviting people with custom epubs to email them to us...
This is huge news. Although Smashwords is a major ebook vendor, especially for self-published books, many authors and publishers have been reluctant or unwilling to either create their books in Word, or submit them to the “Meatgrinder”, Smashwords' terrifyingly-named and woefully-limited EPUB conversion program. The new Smashwords Direct program will allow authors to upload professionally-designed EPUB files and thus give us absolute control over what the EPUB looks like.
So, let's email them some books and help them get this up and running!
Thanks, Smashwords!
