Smashwords is a site where authors can post their writings and readers can download these books either free or for a very small cost.
There are a lot of these sites these days, and the numbers are growing too as both writers and readers see the advantages for them both in this idea. I am sure I shall be drawing your attention to many of these sites as we go along........
This particular site seems to be both a friendly one, and obviously a successful one too, judging by the very large number of books in almost every genre - both fiction and non-fiction - that is on offer there.
This site is different to most other similar sites in that a number of publishers also place books from their lists on this site, which is an interesting development to my mind An initiative that I for one would be very happy to see more of the big publishers following.
The Founder of the site, Mark Coker, has an introduction on the "about us (link) " page, in which he explains very clearly the underlying philosophy of his site, and the advantages that both types of user stand to gain by using his site. It makes interesting reading.
I shall download a few of the books in various genres, and once I have had time to read them, I shall probably review them here, as I mentioned, the range of book types is astonishing, a very impressive collection indeed.
Prices vary from free to a few US Dollars, and they can be downloaded in all the various formats that are out there just now, so pretty well whatever eReader you have, you can safely download books from this intriguing site.
As with a lot of these sites though, you have to be careful as a number of the books on offer at no cost are in fact only excerpts of the book in question, perhaps the first 50 pages of a 100 page book - the intention being that if you enjoy those 50 pages, you will want to return and purchase the entire book, to find out what happens to the characters. As long as one is aware of this, a perfectly reasonable way of doing business I feel, but you need to be aware of this.
As I mentioned above, this site has a very catholic range of literary styles and writers, so it is definitely not one of the sites that are chiefly show cases for authors who have been unable to find normal publishers for their work - such sites are all too often narcissistic self-worship sites.
I had fun sauntering around the various categories, reading the synopsis's of the various books that caught my eye, this place is definitely one that I shall be haunting in the future, in fact, once I have posted this, I intend to return to it and register myself there and sign on for their Newsletter....
A bookshop/publisher I can happily recommend to anyone who enjoys books, whatever age or tastes.
Click this link to visit them: Smashwords
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