Wattpad, the world’s most popular ebook community, and Smashwords, the leading ebook publishing and distribution platform, have announced a partnership that will open up new publishing opportunities for thousands of indie authors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Wattpad and Smashwords will cross-promote each other’s services and have added integration so that Wattpad users can sell books via Smashwords and Smashwords authors can promote free works on Wattpad, including, works-in-progress, complete works, or serial ebooks on Wattpad.

Wattpad operates a social network for writers to connect with readers and share what they have written. Wattpad receives over 10 million visits a month and many of the stories on Wattpad have millions of reads.

“The Wattpad community loves to read and interact with writers. Readers on our site comment on a story once every seven seconds, making Wattpad a solution for writers looking to increase their presence and fan base,” explains Allen Lau, CEO and co-founder of Wattpad. “Our partnership with Smashwords provides our authors with an important outlet to distribute and sell their finished works and then cross-promote these works across Smashwords and Wattpad.”

“Wattpad represents a fabulous training ground where authors can hone their craft and prepare their writing for distribution and sale at Smashwords,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “Current Smashwords authors can benefit from Wattpad as well by using it to share stories, gain feedback and develop fan followings.”

Smashwords publishes and distributes over 13,000 original ebooks from 6,000 authors and hundreds of small independent publishers. To publish at Smashwords, Wattpad authors simply upload their finished manuscript to Smashwords as a Microsoft Word file, formatted to the requirements of the Smashwords Style Guide. Smashwords automatically converts the book into nine ebook formats, and makes it available for immediate sale online at a price set by the author. Smashwords then evaluates the book for inclusion in the Smashwords Premium Catalog, which is the catalog Smashwords distributes to major ebook retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Apple iPad iBookstore.

Both Smashwords and Wattpad are free for writers.

About Wattpad
Founded in 2006, Wattpad is now the world’s most popular ebook community. Wattpad has revolutionized the way people read written works by providing a social networking platform for readers and writers to discover, share and connect. Anyone can publish what they have written on Wattpad – a romantic story, a piece of science fiction, poetry, an essay or a novel – and interact with readers and make fans. Content is easily accessible through Wattpad’s website (www.wattpad.com), mobile site (m.wattpad.com) or with Wattpad apps available for over 1,000 mobile devices including iPad/iPhone, BlackBerry, Google Android, Nokia and Samsung.

Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception and has become the world’s most popular destination to publish and read ebooks. Wattpad delivers billions of pages from its library of hundreds of thousands of works created and published by the Wattpad community. Millions of readers visit Wattpad every month on http://www.wattpad.com/and through their mobile apps.

About Smashwords, Inc.
Launched in 2008, Smashwords operates the leading ebook publishing and distribution platform serving authors, publishers, readers and retailers. Smashwords makes it free and easy for any author or publisher, anywhere in the world, to instantly publish and distribute a multi-format ebook.

Smashwords puts authors and publishers in full control over the pricing, sampling and distribution of their works. Authors and publishers receive up to 85 percent of the net proceeds from sales of their works. Smashwords has distribution relationships with leading online retailers such as Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony and Amazon, and leading mobile e-reading apps such as Stanza, Kobo, Aldiko, FBReader and Word-Player, spanning all major mobile platforms including Android, Blackberry and iPhone. Smashwords is based in Los Gatos, California, and can be reached on the web at http://www.smashwords.com/. Visit the official Smashwords blog at http://blog.smashwords.com/.
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