Smashwords

Smashwords
Founded	2008
Founder	Mark Coker
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Los Gatos, California
Distribution	Worldwide
Official website	www.smashwords.com

Smashwords, Inc., based in

e-books. The company, founded by Mark Coker, began public operation in 2008^[1] and was acquired by Draft2Digital, LLC in ^[2]2022.^[3]

publishers

upload their manuscripts as electronic files to the service, which converts them into multiple e-book formats for various devices. Once published, the books are made available for sale online at a price set by the author or independent publisher.

History

Coker began work on Smashwords in 2005 and officially launched the website in May 2008. Within the first seven months of launching, the website published 140 books.

Amazon

.com's e-book publishing website.

In 2012, Smashwords announced that it would partner with 3M Cloud Library, which would allow for the option for their authors' books to be available in libraries,^[5] and that it had reached about 127,000 titles by 44,000 authors.^[6]

Coker, a former Silicon Valley publicist, started Smashwords in 2008 with the claimed goal of using technology to democratize publishing—allowing writers to appeal directly to readers without having to deal with gatekeepers such as agents and editors. In keeping with this mission, Smashwords applies no editorial screening. The only e-books the firm rejects are ones that contain plagiarism, illegal content or incitement to racism, homophobia or violence.

Smashwords does not use digital rights management.^{[citation needed]}