Generally JM ebooks are sold on the major ebook distributors (Amazon, apple, etc).
As of September 2021, two other options exist: purchasing ebook bundles through the Personville Press store (via payhip) and through Smashwords.
Generally the Personville Press store (via payhip) has the lowest prices on ebook bundles and individual Smashwords generally has the same prices as Amazon does, but if you buy it directly from Smashwords, there’s a good chance that you can use store-specific discounts that provide substantial savings over what you’d find on Amazon. 95% of the time, the coupon discount will be applied to the price and appear on the ebook page.
For ebooks sold below the price of $2.99, Amazon pays publishers and authors half of what Payhip and Smashwords pay. That is why Personville titles sell for 2.99 on Amazon and significantly less on on Payhip and Smashwords.
Robert’s Roundup of Ebook Deals.
Idiotprogrammer Litblog is now doing a weekly column, Robert’s Ebook Roundups . I usually contain information about the latest Smashwords sale at the bottom of every post. .
Managing and converting ebook files
Here are some things you need to know about Smashwords. They don’t currently have a reading app, so you currently have to export the file into some reading application. (But note that Smashwords keeps these downloads for you, so you can re-download them any time).
Another thing you will notice is that Smashwords sometimes offers the ebook in different file formats. The most common formats are .epub, .mobi (for Kindles) and .pdfs. Generally all the Jack Matthews titles will have .epub files for downloading; occasionally it will offer .mobi files as well, but not PDFs (because it is not as flexible for various devices). I produce .epub files because that is the most universal format and tends to offer the most formatting capabilities.
I do make .mobi files, but Smashwords doesn’t let me upload them separately. That’s ok because .epub files tend to be better anyway. If you need a .mobi file, then you should convert the .epub file to .mobi and then send the .mobi file directly to your device through Kindle Personal Document service.
To convert the .epub file to .mobi, you have two options:
- download the Kindle Previewer to convert the files. Try to use the Kindle Previewer 3 (beta or regular) if you can.
- Download Calibre ebook management software to do the conversion.
My personal preference as of 2016 is to download my .epub files into Dropbox and then upload them to Google Play Books. Once GPB has it, you can view the ebook in the GPB app on whatever device you have. I test my ebooks extensively in GPB and can report that they usually look excellent.
Incidentally, another great thing about Smashwords is that you can choose to save them directly in your Dropbox folder (usually inside a subdirectory called Apps –> Smashwords).
