Smashwords: The Platform That Built Wide Publishing

Every field has origin stories—founding moments and founding figures that shaped what came after. In indie publishing, when it comes to the idea of publishing wide, Smashwords and its founder Mark Coker are as close to origin as you get. Understanding Smashwords is not merely a history lesson. It is context for everything the wide publishing movement stands for today, and it is directly relevant for any author who published through Smashwords and needs to understand what happened to their catalog after the platform's merger with Draft2Digital in 2022.

What Smashwords Was

Smashwords launched in 2008—the same year Amazon introduced the Kindle, which put it at the very beginning of the modern ebook era. Mark Coker, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author, founded it on a philosophical premise that was radical for the time: that authors should be able to publish ebooks and distribute them to every major retailer without gatekeeping, without setup fees, and without requiring exclusivity.

This was a meaningful stance. Amazon's KDP launched with features designed to reward exclusivity. The traditional publishing industry was largely hostile to self-publishing. Smashwords positioned itself explicitly as the alternative—a platform that believed in author rights, wide distribution, and open access to the ebook market.

At its peak, Smashwords was distributing to Apple iBookstore (now Apple Books), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony Reader Store, and a range of other retailers that have since changed or closed. For thousands of indie authors in the early years of the ebook revolution, Smashwords was their entire distribution operation.

Mark Coker and the Wide Philosophy

Mark Coker was not just a platform operator—he was an ideological advocate for wide publishing. Through Smashwords' blog, through his Smashwords Style Guide (a free ebook formatting guide that became a standard reference for early indie authors), and through years of public writing and speaking, Coker consistently argued that author dependence on any single platform was a strategic vulnerability and a creative risk.

His arguments anticipated much of what the indie author community now accepts as conventional wisdom: that Amazon's dominance was powerful but not permanent, that the global ebook market was larger than the US market alone, that authors who owned their distribution were building more durable businesses than those who rented it. Coker was making these arguments in 2009 and 2010, when the dominant conversation in indie publishing was still about whether self-publishing was legitimate at all.

The Smashwords community that formed around these ideas was genuine. Authors who published on Smashwords in its early years often did so because they believed in what the platform represented, not just because of the distribution it provided. That community ethos was real and it mattered for the platform's early growth.

The Challenges Smashwords Faced

Smashwords' challenges were the challenges of an indie platform that grew to significant scale without the resources of a larger company behind it. Several issues accumulated over time.

The Meatgrinder Problem

Smashwords' ePub conversion system—internally called the Meatgrinder—was the source of more author frustration than almost any other aspect of the platform. The system converted Word documents into ePub and other formats using a style-guide-compliant conversion process that required authors to follow very specific formatting rules. When documents did not conform exactly, the results could be unpredictable. A generation of indie authors has memories of reformatting manuscripts repeatedly to pass Smashwords' quality filters.

The Meatgrinder worked, and the Style Guide that Coker wrote to help authors use it correctly became a genuinely valuable resource. But the system was a friction point that Draft2Digital's simpler upload process did not have, and it was one reason many authors eventually moved distribution to D2D.

Growing Competition

By 2014 and 2015, Draft2Digital had emerged as a serious competitor with a cleaner interface, better customer service, and a more modern approach to the distribution aggregator model. D2D attracted authors who found Smashwords' requirements cumbersome, and over time D2D became the aggregator of choice for most new wide authors entering the market.

Meanwhile, KDP Select's Kindle Unlimited program launched in 2014 and pulled a significant portion of the author community into Amazon exclusivity with meaningful financial incentives. The wide publishing market—Smashwords' core constituency—contracted as KU grew.

The Draft2Digital Merger

In March 2022, Draft2Digital announced that it had acquired Smashwords. Mark Coker announced his retirement and the transition of Smashwords' operations to D2D. The merger combined two of the indie publishing community's most significant wide distribution platforms and created a single, more comprehensive aggregator.

For existing Smashwords authors, the merger meant their catalogs were migrated to D2D's system. The Smashwords storefront at smashwords.com has continued to operate as a retail destination for a period, though D2D has progressively integrated functions and the long-term future of Smashwords as a standalone storefront is oriented toward eventual consolidation under the D2D brand.

What Changed for Authors

Authors who had books on Smashwords found that their distribution relationships—with Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and other retailers that Smashwords was serving—were maintained through D2D's network. The transition was managed carefully to avoid disrupting live distribution, though some authors experienced temporary gaps or required manual re-establishment of distribution to certain partners.

Royalty reporting consolidated into D2D's dashboard. Authors who had been managing Smashwords royalties separately now found them under the D2D account. For authors who were confused about where their Smashwords-era royalties were coming from or where their books were being distributed post-merger, the short answer is: Draft2Digital is now the platform managing everything that Smashwords was managing.

The Smashwords Store

Smashwords operated its own retail storefront where readers could purchase ebooks directly. This was a modest but real sales channel, particularly for authors who had built a Smashwords-specific reader community over many years. The Smashwords store's long-term future under D2D is a function of D2D's strategic priorities, and authors should not count on the Smashwords storefront as a significant ongoing revenue source—D2D's own retail presence is not the primary value of their service.

What the Smashwords Legacy Means Today

The merger with D2D was not a failure story. It was a consolidation story, and consolidations often produce stronger platforms than either predecessor alone. D2D gained Smashwords' author base, its retailer relationships, and in some respects the ideological community that Coker had built. Smashwords' authors gained D2D's cleaner interface, better formatting tools, and stronger customer support infrastructure.

The more important legacy is philosophical. The wide publishing movement that Smashwords helped create—the belief that authors should distribute everywhere, should not cede control to a single platform, and should build businesses that survive any one company's decisions—is more relevant today than it was in 2008. Amazon has changed KDP Select terms multiple times. Kindle Unlimited's per-page rate has fluctuated. The authors who built wide from the beginning are insulated from those changes in ways that exclusive authors are not.

Mark Coker was right about wide publishing, and he was right early. The platform he built is now part of something larger, but the principle he championed remains foundational to how serious indie authors think about their businesses.

Practical Notes for Authors With Smashwords History

• If you had active Smashwords distribution before the merger, your books should now be managed under your Draft2Digital account—log in to D2D to verify your catalog status

• If there are titles that were on Smashwords but are not appearing in your D2D dashboard, contact D2D support to trace the migration status

• Royalties earned through Smashwords retail before the merger may have separate payment history—review your complete Smashwords account statements if you have outstanding payment questions

• If you were distributing to retailers through Smashwords and then independently set up direct accounts on those same platforms, verify that you do not have duplicate distribution active for the same titles

• Connect your D2D account to ScribeCount to ensure your full wide royalty picture—including your migrated Smashwords-era catalog—is visible in one place

Conclusion

Smashwords earned its place in the indie publishing story. It opened a door that many authors would never have found otherwise, championed a philosophy that the community continues to rely on, and created the infrastructure conditions that made D2D's eventual success possible. Wide publishing today stands on the foundation Smashwords laid. Authors who understand that history understand why the principles behind it still matter—and why going wide is still one of the most important strategic decisions an indie author can make. 

- Randall