Let's have a punch by punch comparison of the contender vs. the reigning champion of indie eBook publishing. Pronoun vs. Smashwords
The Service
Smashwords and Pronoun are meta publishers for eBooks. You upload your books data, cover and story file and both services do the same: publish the book on various eTailers, collecting your revenues and cutting you a single check of payment. Both services do this as advertised. Pronoun vs. Smashwords: a draw.
Preparing your Book
Both services expect your book preformatted to specifications. In both cases we are talking Word document or ePub. The services then convert the input file into the various output formats, add table of contents, integrate the cover, etc. To guide you through the process, Smashwords has a long manual that elaborately explains each step how the Word Document has to be prepared. As I did this several times in the past, I can say that there is trial and error needed to get it right. Especially when you generate the Word Doc from Scrivener and like to minimize manual formatting. Pronoun has a step by step tutorial online of about 10 steps, where most steps are not needed if you have straightforward text only prose to offer. I thought it was much faster and convenient. Pronoun 1 : Smashwords 0
The Book Submission
Clear winner without much fanfare: Pronoun. Why? The interface and experience is much cleaner and easy to use. You have everything graphically arranged on one page and then go into each component (Upload Cover, Select Keywords, Select Genre...). The nicest part: you don't need to save anything. It simply sticks. Smashword is good old HTML form stuff, ten years ago fine. Admittedly it does the job, but Pronoun does do it with ease. Pronoun 2 : Smashwords 0
Sales Channels
Not the most unimportant topic. Interface and ease of use is one thing, but the main reason why you do it is to get published on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and likes. And you do with both services. However, Pronoun is limited to a handful of outlets whereas Smashword offers a lot more. Although in all fairness, Pronoun covers the most important ones with Amazon, Google, Kobo, iTunes and B&N. Pronoun isslightly faster in the channel publishing, Kobo was there within a day and the rest of the pack followed a day (Pronoun estimates 3-5 days, so they overdelivered). Smashwords first needs to go into a premium status in order to qualify for publishing outside of the Smashword store. Despite this, due to sheer quantity of channels, Smashword is the clear winner here. Pronoun 2 : Smashwords 1
