Smashwords Inks Distribution Deal With Sony

A month after signing a distribution deal with the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, online publishing platform Smashwords announced on Tuesday that it has reached a similar arrangement with Sony. Authors who upload their work to Smashwords through Sony’s new “Publisher Portal” can expect to see it added to the Sony e-book catalogue in as little as ten days, the company said.

“Self-published authors can now go from Word document to widespread e-book distribution in a matter of days, reaching two of the three most notable e-book retailers,” Smashwords founder Mark Coker wrote in an e-mail. “All at no cost to the author.” Coker added that Sony would begin distributing the existing Smashwords library of more than three thousand titles within the next two to three months.

Sony’s Publisher Portal also includes a link to Indiana-based Author Solutions, which subsumes a number of self-publishing brands and offers a suite of mostly fee-based services. Both Smashwords and Author Solutions will make e-books available in the increasingly popular ePub format, which Sony recently adopted as its standard.