The Chaining of the Pen?

What would you do if someone told you that you couldn’t tell others where your artwork is located? What would you do if that same person told you they couldn’t showcase your art because you let others know where they could find your work?

Interestingly enough, that seems to be the road the writing industry is headed towards. I’ve frequently heard authors complaining of Apple refusing to publish ebooks with links to other distributing sites such as Amazon or Barnes&Nobles, but thought this was an isolated incident.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

I received this notice from Smashwords regarding a novelette I recently published on their site:

The current status of Angel of Death: A Short Story (Thomas Lord of Death) is
Needs modification
Problems were found in review

Book covers need to be at least 1400 pixels wide. Please upload a new cover image at Dashboard: Settings. Please do not link or refer to any other digital download source other than Smashwords or the author’s personal blog or website. Our retail partners don’t want to see links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or mention of the Kindle or Nook. When you’re finished correcting your book, go to Dashboard: ‘upload new version’ to upload the new version. Thanks.

This disturbed me.

In the past, I’ve had much more respect for Smashwords as an ebook distributor, than for any other site. They were DRM-free and seemed to bow to the will of the author.

Not anymore.

Smashwords has joined the ranks of ebook distributing sites who’ve named themselves Big Brother over the self-publishing industry.

Leave a Comment

Comments

  1. Smashwords is referring to iTunes as their retail partner. This is an Apple policy, and they've been doing this sort of thing for years. You are far from the first person to run into this issue – just last week, Holly Lisle nearly pulled all her content from iTunes due to disallowed linkage – and yes, it's sleazy. iTunes is protectionist about everything.

  2. I have to say that instead of making me turn away from Amazon, it's making me feel more favorable towards them. This practice these sites are engaging in is ugly, to say the least.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *