SMASHWORDS.COM

Foreword by Stan Lerner: as I sit here at Break Espresso in Missoula Montana preparing once again to travel on the “Road To Nowhere” I can’t help, but to write about smashwords.com because much like I wrote of in my blog post “Go Buy A Kindle” it is the invention of websites such as smashwords, which afford me the luxury to be so not tethered to my home base in Los Angeles. And I will tell you now dear readers, that I will in the course of this blog post solicit your support of this site, not only because my own book titles are sold there, but because the success of smashwords.com will ultimately be all of our success.

What is smashwords.com? Herein lies our story. But first the simple answer: smashwords.com is a website that sells ebooks only and it sells them in every format, for every device on the market. Now that I’ve completed these most creative and literary sentences, let me expand to the wider aspect and explain how I came to not only discover smashwords.com, but became one of its advocates.

Regular readers of my work will recollect that I spent the waning months of 2009 in Las Vegas working on posts for blogsincity and my eventually to be released novella “Lerner’s Las Vegas”. A few particularly observant readers noticed that I did not post any new work during the month of December and the first two weeks of January and commented on such.

So as I cohabitated with a variety of things to write before the end of the decade (blogs, scripts, books and a business plan) in Las Vegas I took to the task of posting the downtownster.com Ten Best Blogs of the year. One of the Ten Best Blogs of the year, just so happened to be my blog post “Go Buy A Kindle”. This blog once reposted generated still greater readership and several more comments. But it was one particular comment that determined that the month of December would take a very unexpected turn. The comment, of which I speak, was one of concern that in my post about Kindle I did not mention the Sony eReader.

I commented back that I was not advocating one device over another, but I personally preferred Amazon Kindle over Sony eReader because of it’s 3G WiFi connectivity. This very smart reader then pointed out that Sony eReader, like Amazon Kindle, had WiFi and that perhaps I was confused or on drugs. And then through the cloud of work that had been distracting me I realized that the reposting of the blog “Go Buy A Kindle” did not allow for the fact that the information contained therein was more than six months old. Nothing in normal literary terms, but an eternity in writing about technology—and sure enough Sony had since the original posting updated its device, so it too could download books anytime anywhere via a wireless connection. I stood corrected and promised to not only review the Sony eReader, but to make all of my own book titles available to it as they are for Amazon Kindle.

I should mention here that reviews of new products such as Sony eReader or Barnes & Noble’s Nook often overlook the back end of the product. So the consumer will read volumes of information on what the product feels like in their hand, its battery life, the screen size and so on. But what the consumer will not read about is the business to business experience of supplying content to these devices. Amazon in some ways occupies a different level in this respect—the Kindle digital platform allows companies such as Lerner Wordsmith Press (my publishing company) to upload content directly to the Kindle store for distribution and they provide a pretty good interface to work with. Sony and Barnes & Noble are simply not in the business of dealing with independent publishers and or writers. But much to Sony’s credit, they do recommend independents to smashwords.com, which acts as an ebook distributor to both Sony eReader and Barnes & Noble Nook. At the time I began my research on the matter Barnes & Noble, who many know I have no love affair with, gave no clue to independents as to how to supply books to their device—par for the course for Barnes & Noble.

So thanks to Sony I found smashwords.com and began to familiarize myself with how to publish for smashwords. “Interesting,” I thought to myself as I digested the fact that smashwords uses a type of meat grinder program that ingests word files and then outputs the files as ebooks in multiple formats for every type of ebook reading experience. And then like the moment in Jurassic Park where Samuel L. Jackson looks up from his computer with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and says, “Man I’d have to go through two million lines of code to figure out what he did,” it dawned on me that I was going to have to reformat every line of every book I had ever written to meet the smashwords’s style guide requirements. Now much like the unpleasant task of having to jump into a cesspool and manually turn the release valve because the toilets in the house are overflowing on Thanksgiving Day, just before all of the relatives arrive—it’s best not to think about the task at hand, you just have to hold your nose and do it with one thought in mind, “When this is over everything is going to be great!!!” And because of a comment about a blog I spent the next six weeks formatting and uploading all seven of my current book titles to smashwords.com.

What does this all mean? Smashwords.com is a momentous step toward liberating the literary world and free speech itself from what has become almost complete corporate corruption. And no, I am not the enemy of big corporate America because of come crazy liberal sensibility, in fact anyone who knows me knows that I could get up from my writing table and be a CEO tomorrow, if I could just find a company to run that didn’t reek of the stench of mediocrity. As many of you know this is the same stench that has kept an award-winning novel like “Stan Lerner’s Criminal” off of the shelves of Barnes & Noble and Borders. But this is about much more than one book; it is about all of the books that have suffered the same fate. It is also about the hundreds of millions of readers who have been deprived access to great literature because of the censorship power of a few people. Now, because of devices like Kindle and Sony eReader and websites such as smashwords.com the playing field has become much more level. Almost every day someone asks me how he or she can get his or her book published. Until recently it was a difficult answer to give, because most people did not have the resources I possessed at their disposal, but now I do have an answer to give—smashwords.com.

My dear readers go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stan and see what this step in the right direction looks like for this writer. And please tell others, it’s an easy thing to get behind and it will truly make a difference. Below I’ve listed the titles I’ve made available on smashwords.com and I’ve provided links directly to their individual smashwords’ pages. Give them each a perusal and I urge you to download the FREE previews. I think you’re going to like this…

STAN LERNER’S BOOKS ON SMASHWORDS .COM

“STAN LERNER’S CRIMINAL”

HOLLYWOOD BOOK FESTIVAL GRAND PRIZE WINNER

An intense page-turner based on the author’s true-life experiences.

“Stan Lerner’s Criminal” is the graphic and shocking account of the rise to power of the world’s most calculating and dangerous criminal…Sam Noah.

Sam Noah was handsome, intelligent, and charismatic. He came from a good family, had the perfect girlfriend, and attended UCLA where he ranked at the top of his class.  Noah could have made anything he wanted to out of his life. But crime came naturally to him.

The story begins in 1984. The Cold War is at its height and the CIA is looking for still more funding for its covert operations around the world. Powerful men decide that there must be a go to guy. A man that will do whatever is necessary to finance the wars that Congress cannot be made aware of.

Sam Noah takes a job at a popular nightclub where he runs a smalltime ticket scam — and he begins to recruit the ruthless men that will help him build a narcotics empire.

When the FBI becomes a gathering threat to Noah, he forms an alliance with the CIA. His innovations — the crack house and the drive-by shooting — not only bring an unprecedented level of violence to the streets of America. They assure the powerful men who have engaged his services that Noah is indeed capable of doing the unthinkable.

The sale of cocaine makes him rich. His willingness to commit murder ensures that he will remain so.

Not since Hannibal Lecter has there been such a horrifying yet engaging mastermind of evil.

“Stan Lerner’s Criminal” transports the reader into the darkest of all places: the criminal mind.  This is an unforgettable journey into the psyche of Sam Noah — the man behind some of the most brutal sins against humanity.

By the end of this unflinching tale, what may shock the reader the most is how he or she will ultimately identify with and root for this ruthless but brilliant “Criminal”.

To sample or purchase “Stan Lerner’s Criminal” please visit:

 http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7628

“IN DEVELOPMENT”

“In Development” is a hilarious account of a day in the life of Stan Peters—Hollywood’s most powerful and scummiest producer.

The day begins like any other day—a superlative, five-star breakfast at The Peninsula Hotel. However, the shocking news that there has been a change at the very top of the studio means that the perfect world of Stan and his closest associates could come to a sudden end—especially with a movie like “Two Jews and a Blonde Psycho” in development. The subsequent call from Brad, the new studio boss, confirms their greatest fear—their movie is in danger of being put in turn-around. A day of sex, manipulation, lying, betrayal, blackmail, and murder ensues — otherwise known in Hollywood as a happy ending.

To sample or purchase “In Development” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7633

BLAST

To sample or purchase “Blast” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8050

IMPACT

To sample or purchase “Impact” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8271

GET CHICKS 101

To sample or purchase “Get Chicks 101” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8281

GET THE RIGHT GUY

To sample or purchase “Get The Right Guy” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7846

NINETY- NINE POSTS

To sample or purchase “Ninety-Nine Posts” please visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9380

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stan Lerner is an award winning-author whose diverse credits include the novels “Stan Lerner’s Criminal”, “Blast”, “In Development,” and the children’s book “Stanley The Elephant.” Stan Lerner is also the creator of the Las Vegas music spectacle “Night Tribe” and the writer, director, producer of the hit motion picture “Meet The Family.” Mr. Lerner was born in Montebello CA and has lived in downtown Los Angeles for the last fifteen years.

For more information about Stan Lerner please visit his author profile at: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stan

27 thoughts on “SMASHWORDS.COM”

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