distribution

Services such as Findaway Voices and ACX, a subsidiary of Amazon’s Audible, enable independent authors to reach the expanding audience for audiobooks.

HarperCollins has handed its distribution business in the United States to commercial printing giant RR Donnelley; Robin Beth Schaer writes of serving aboard the historic ship Bounty, which was lost at sea during Hurricane Sandy; GalleyCat explains why you should write by hand; and other news.

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.

Online publishing platform Smashwords has signed a distribution deal with Barnes & Noble. The e-book publisher announced last Friday that titles from its new “Premium Catalog” would be made available through the Barnes & Noble eBookstore as well as through digital retailer Fictionwise, which was acquired by the bookseller in March.

Google kicked off a new program yesterday that will allow authors who have released their books under the Creative Commons license to distribute them free through Google Books. Participants will be able to select from among seven versions of the Creative Commons agreement, which lets rightsholders make works openly available while still specifying how they may be used or altered.