Smashwords distributing to Oyster

docmarty said:

It'll be interesting to see how royalties are paid though.

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I'm not sure what you mean. If you opt-in at Smashwords, it is simply another sales channel option, just like all the other aggregators (except for the fact that no one ever actually owns the e-book, they're paying for a monthly service). Oyster pays Smashwords and Smashwords pays their authors. You can view all the sales/payments through your Smashwords account. Smashwords pays royalties quarterly.

most of the people who buy ebooks don't subscribe to Oyster so when someone tells them about a great ebook they read on Oyster

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This seems to contradict itself. If most people who read e-books don't subscribe to Oyster, how can they tell other people about an e-book they read on Oyster?

merrihiatt said:

I'm not sure what you mean. If you opt-in at Smashwords, it is simply another sales channel option, just like all the other aggregators (except for the fact that no one ever actually owns the e-book, they're paying for a monthly service). Oyster pays Smashwords and Smashwords pays their authors. You can view all the sales/payments through your Smashwords account. Smashwords pays royalties quarterly.

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Smashwords pays you each time your book is sold. I don't think Oyster will work that way if it's similar to Netflix. Will Oyster keep track of how many times each book is read on their service and then pass along this date to Smashwords?

This seems to contradict itself. If most people who read e-books don't subscribe to Oyster, how can they tell other people about an e-book they read on Oyster?

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If I use Oyster and read a book called "Oysters Aren't Yummy" and tell my friend how great it is, they might decide to check it out. If they don't subscribe to Oyster then they'll have to buy it on Amazon or another site. That's what I meant by good word of mouth.

Smashwords pays you each time your book is sold. I don't think Oyster will work that way if it's similar to Netflix. Will Oyster keep track of how many times each book is read on their service and then pass along this date to Smashwords?

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Yes and no. Smashwords sales show up immediately in your sales/payments section when your e-book is purchased on the Smashwords site. You don't receive the payment, as an author, until quarterly royalties are paid. The same is true for B&N, Apple, etc. You can see which titles have sold and when, but each sales channel pays Smashwords on their own schedule.

For example, I just received payment through PayPal from third quarter earnings from Smashwords (a bit over $300). If you were to look at my sales/payments section, I have more royalty money sitting there (around $75). That money will be paid out at the end of the fourth quarter when the sales channels pay Smashwords and then Smashwords pays me.

I don't believe the system will be different for Oyster. Some sales channels update their sales and payments more frequently. I see regular monthly (and sometimes weekly) updates from B&N, Sony, Kobo and Apple. As I said earlier, sales on Smashwords' site itself are immediate. Payment is not immediate for any sales.

I assumed that Oyster would be similar to Netflix based on their monthly subscription payment scheme but I was wrong.

From http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/09/smashwords-signs-distribution-agreement.html

A single Oyster user could conceivably read multiple books by the same Smashwords author in a single month, and the author will be paid for each book. Smashwords authors will earn their royalty whenever an Oyster subscriber reads more than a sample of their book.

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I believe that when Netflix purchases 3 seasons of 3 different TV shows from the same network, Netflix pays the network X amount of dollars for the right to stream all of these episodes for X amount of time.

The creators of these 3 shows are not paid based on how many times their shows are viewed, their contract is with the network.

Since Oyster will pay royalties based on how many times a book is read, or at least when more than a sample of the book is read, it seems like they will be paying distributors based on this as well. I had assumed that they would purchase books in bulk for a one time fee.

edit: Here's some more info from someone who posted a comment to that blog entry.

As for Oyster, the email states: As a Smashwords author or publisher, you’ll earn 60% of you book’s retail list price whenever an Oyster subscriber reads more than 10% of your book, starting from the beginning of the book forward.

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Oyster doesn't mess around when it comes to tracking their user's reading statistics.

Good discussion on this. It doesn't seem like there's much of a downside to the Oyster deal at this point, but let's face it: not many people know about Oyster yet.

The real issue will be how easy are our books to find in the Oyster search and recommendation algorithms? It's not clear -- as with Amazon -- whether self-published books will be in the same pool as HarperCollins titles or whether a reader will have to seek out particular authors or books. We shall see...

Any updates on this for those who have opted in?

HistorySleuth said:

Any updates on this for those who have opted in?

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I've been opted in from the start. There's been no activity there, so nothing really to report.

Likewise. Haven't seen any activity on the Oyster channel. Then again, Smashwords is cricketsville for me in general.

I'm debating Smashwords is why I ask. Managed to get my book on amazon when it converted my ePub but the ePub itself seems to have issues.

I made 10 sales through Oyster and picked up about $22 over the last few months, FYI. It's not huge, but it's more than nothing.

That sounds very good, Parametric, compared to sales I've seen reported elsewhere. Well done!

Thank you! I just picked up another $17 from Oyster for March sales, so I think this sales channel can stay.

Well, Oyster is now shutting down.