Smashwords Is Dying — Where Erotica Authors Are Going Instead

For almost a decade, Smashwords was the answer to a question every erotica author eventually asked: where can I sell the books Amazon won't carry? Founded by Mark Coker in 2008, the platform built its reputation on being the permissive alternative. While Amazon was banning titles and suppressing categories, Smashwords let authors publish almost anything legal and sold it directly to readers.

That era is over in every way that matters.

What happened to Smashwords

Draft2Digital acquired Smashwords in 2022. The acquisition was framed as a merger of equals, a combining of strengths. In practice, D2D absorbed Smashwords into its distribution infrastructure and gradually shifted the platform's identity.

The Smashwords storefront still exists. You can still browse it, buy books from it, and technically upload to it. But the energy is gone. The homepage feels like a museum exhibit from 2015. New feature development has effectively stopped. Author tools haven't been meaningfully updated. The meatgrinder formatting system that was revolutionary in 2010 is now a source of frustration for authors used to modern upload workflows.

More importantly for erotica authors, the content climate shifted. D2D distributes to retail partners, and those partners brought their content policies with them. Titles that lived comfortably on Smashwords for years started getting filtered, flagged, or quietly removed from partner distribution channels. The old promise of "if it's legal, you can sell it here" became "if it's legal and also acceptable to Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble."

Authors who relied on Smashwords as their primary storefront found themselves in a familiar position. The platform they trusted was no longer the platform they'd signed up for.

Why authors are leaving

The exit isn't dramatic. There's no mass boycott or viral protest. Authors are simply drifting away because the reasons to stay have eroded.

Discovery on the Smashwords storefront is essentially dead. The site's search and browse experience hasn't kept pace with modern expectations. Readers who might have browsed the Smashwords erotica section five years ago have moved to other platforms or given up trying to find new authors through a UI that feels abandoned.

The distribution value has declined. D2D's retail partners are increasingly hostile to taboo content, which means going wide through D2D/Smashwords doesn't actually put your book in front of readers if it falls into a suppressed category. You're distributed on paper, invisible in practice.

And the community is gone. Smashwords used to have active forums, engaged author discussions, and a sense of collective identity among its publishers. That infrastructure died in the acquisition. The authors who built their careers on Smashwords have scattered, taking their readerships with them.

Where they're going

The replacement ecosystem isn't a single platform. It's a combination of tools and channels that together cover what Smashwords used to do alone.

For direct book sales: Independent marketplaces built for adult fiction have filled the gap. Maliven operates the way Smashwords used to. Authors upload their books, set their own prices, and sell directly to readers without a chain of retail partners filtering content along the way. The author roster includes writers across subgenres from haremlit to erotic fantasy to mind control. The 70%+ royalty rate matches what authors expected from Smashwords at its best.

For reader discovery: Free fiction platforms have taken over the browsing function that Smashwords' storefront used to serve. Readers browse by category and tag, find authors whose work resonates, and follow links to their paid listings. The discovery experience is better than late-era Smashwords because these platforms were built recently with modern UX expectations rather than carrying a decade of technical debt.

For serialized content: SubscribeStar and Ream Stories offer subscription-based publishing that Smashwords never provided. Authors releasing chapters on a schedule can build recurring revenue that individual book sales can't match. The subscription model has become a major income stream for erotica authors who publish consistently.

For maximum control: Direct sales through Payhip or Gumroad give authors complete ownership of the transaction. No platform content policies, no distribution partner filtering, no middleman at all beyond the payment processor. The trade-off is that you're responsible for driving every visitor yourself.

What Smashwords got right that the new ecosystem needs to preserve

Before writing off Smashwords entirely, it's worth acknowledging what the platform did well during its best years.

Smashwords treated authors as partners rather than suppliers. The tone of communication was respectful, the policies were transparent, and when issues arose, there was a human being you could email. That culture of author-first thinking is the standard the newer platforms need to maintain as they grow.

The permissive content policy was genuinely radical when it launched. At a time when every other retailer was adding restrictions, Smashwords said "legal fiction is welcome fiction" and meant it. The platforms replacing Smashwords need to hold that line, especially as they grow larger and face the same pressure from payment processors and advocacy groups that eventually constrained Smashwords itself.

And the all-in-one simplicity mattered. Upload once, distribute everywhere, sell through a single storefront. Authors didn't need to manage five different platform accounts. The current ecosystem asks more of authors in terms of platform management, and any tool that reduces that friction is adding real value.

The practical migration

If you still have books on Smashwords and you're thinking about diversifying, the process is straightforward.

First, make sure you have clean copies of all your manuscripts. EPUB files or DOCX originals, plus your cover images at full resolution. Don't rely on Smashwords' stored versions as your only copies.

Second, set up accounts on the platforms that fit your content. For most erotica authors, that means a marketplace account for selling completed works and an account on a free reading platform for publishing discovery content. Both take minutes to set up.

Third, start uploading your backlist to your new home while leaving your Smashwords listings active. There's no reason to pull books from Smashwords until you've established yourself elsewhere. The sales may be trickling, but a trickle is better than zero while you're getting set up.

Fourth, write one new piece specifically for your new platform. A free short story for the reading platform, or a new title for the marketplace. Your existing readers on Smashwords can be pointed to your new listings through updated back matter in your existing books. Every sale you make on the new platform starts building your presence there.

Looking forward

Smashwords isn't disappearing tomorrow. It'll probably exist as a legacy storefront for years, slowly accumulating dust while D2D focuses its development resources elsewhere. Books published there will remain technically available. Some sales will continue to trickle in.

But the trajectory is clear. The platform that defined independent erotica publishing for a generation has become a footnote in a larger distribution company's portfolio. The authors who recognize that and build their presence on platforms with active development, engaged reader communities, and genuine commitment to adult content will be the ones positioned best as the market continues shifting.

The golden era of one platform handling everything is probably gone for good. What's replacing it is a flexible ecosystem where authors combine tools based on their specific needs. It requires more setup than uploading to Smashwords and forgetting about it. But it produces something Smashwords couldn't guarantee in its final years: stability.