Some may have heard of Smashwords — another platform which allows authors to upload their novels where readers can purchase and download them. I had looked into Smashwords and already gained prior understanding that it’d be a gruelling task just to upload work onto the platform.
You see, you can’t just upload your written manuscript onto the platform like that and not expect not to encounter issues. It’s really NOT as simple as using Amazon or Google Books. Sure the files have to be in the correct format and must be tweaked for the sake of them displaying correctly on the many viewing devices. I spent quite a lot of time correcting this, ensuring I wouldn’t have blank pages in my document due to me hitting the spacebar more times than five (Sounds ridiculous but wait until you have to do it). Smashwords will email you if said document has an issue, they they will even refer you to a guidebook. The guidebook was many pages long, that if we’re being realistic, most authors won’t even bother to read it all. Instead I found Youtube videos on how to do things correctly when it came to Smashwords. I still had problems with formatting the pages of my book so I referred to a section in the guide book and eventually got it resolved.
I then reuploaded it — Again and Again and Again! — the cover included and, as expected, Smashwords came back to me with another issue. More modifications and despite all this and the fact it was only on the site for a couple of days I made a sale. The current issue now is the tags and it hasn’t been made clear how I should correct this.
The problems I also have with this site is communication. The only communication is via email but they could do with a chat feature. They don’t have video examples of how to do things correctly (This would’ve helped greatly). Rules are too stringent. The guide book is too long. An author just wrote a book, they don’t want to read another one on how to correct their manuscript!