Sony announced recently a partnership with Smashwords and Author Solutions which will allow any author to upload a book to their eBook store, giving self published authors unprecedented access to the market place that is the e-reader.

Sony’s eReader version will only vet content for hate speech, plagiarism, improper formatting or public domain books offered by another other than the legitimate author. Other than that you are free to upload anything in the form of eBooks to this store. When book shelves are made digital it opens doors to everyone who wants to gain access to the mainstream public and many will rise to fame just like many bloggers have in the recent years and many more video entrepreneurs have become YouTube phenomena. To publish a book on Smashwords an author or a publisher uploads a manuscript in a specific word format and sets a price and selects affiliates such as Barnes and Noble, Aldiko on Android and Stanza on iPhone and now the Sony eBook store. Once this is done it’s up to readers to rate your book and decide if it is a success or a failure.

For Sony, since digital shelf space is infinite there is no downside to this deal. “We’re committed to providing our customers access to the broadest range of eBook content available and believe these collaborations will allow us to expand the store selection with a host of compelling works from independent sources,” said Sony eBook Store director Chris Smythe. That being said, authors who have already uploaded their content to Smashwords will have to wait some time until Sony migrates it’s platform to the standard EPUB format.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website