Reviews of Smashwords Style Guide

Sorry, I can't understand a word of it. It hasn't helped me understand what is wrong with my book? You say it's published, then it isn't, then it is. Now what? I don't understand, I keep fixing it and it's not enough!

Totally incomprehensible. Seems designed to weed out all independent authors who cannot possibly hire the techs needed to produce one of these.

The most confusing book I have ever read in my life! Have no idea of where to start, nothing easy about it.

This is 2023 !
Is there anything else authors can do FOR Smashwords to put our hard work on your site, amplifying its value ?
As a platform, one of many, provide a genuine value add service to your 'clients'.
If you truly CARE about your clients as you purport, perhaps you would not have a PRIMITIVE 2014 guide you are attempting to pass off.
Wake up mate, this is 2023 NOT 2014.
Times change, change with it !
STARS - ZERO

This is an amazing book, once you understand how to work the "Styles" section in Word. Mark shows how the Styles section of the Word program can be used to easily format a book. Just work through it, step by step. The techniques he describes here can be used to easily manipulate any Word project.

As author I have found this guide helpful in many ways, keep on doing the great works and all the best .

I'm another author who found the Style Guide unworkable. I had no problem formatting my book manuscript for both paperback and Kindle formats but there was nothing straightforward or intuitive about the guide. It remains way too time consuming for for me unnecessary, considering that my novel has already been published in at least three different formats.
I occasionally get emails from Smashwords advising me that my manuscript has been flagged for modifications before it can be included in the premium catalog. Now that Draft2Digital bought Smashwords, there's no need to make those those modifications. The eBook of my novel has long been published and sold through D2D and Kindle/Amazon.

Some of you are complaining that you’re not able to follow Mark’s Guide. I thought his chatty approach was an attempt to make the process more approachable, but maybe something like Aaron Shepard’s ‘From Word to Kindle’ might be worth a look. The Kindle version retails for $2.99 on Amazon. He explains the why as well as the how of formatting in Word to create a quality eBook. Note that his book is directed toward publishing on Amazon, so some things might work differently. For example, in the Guide, Mark discusses direct formatting reverting to its underlying style when Meatgrinder (a Smashwords processor) converts the manuscript to an eBook. This is the opposite of the way it works when preparing a manuscript for Amazon. In his book, Aaron discusses how to use direct formatting to override Amazon’s preference for justified text.

Note that both the Guide and the book have been overcome by reality. Amazon no longer accepts MOBI files but now prefers ePubs. Both need to reflect that fact. Aaron’s book discusses how to save a manuscript as an HTML file for more control over the conversion process. A good conversion tool like Atlantis Word Processor will take your docx file and convert it into a presentable ePub within a couple of minutes. Messing the the HTML is not really necessary. If you feel the need to tweak your ePub further, you can do that in a free program called Sigil. And neither Mark’s Guide nor Aaron’s book stress the importance of using heading styles for the creation of the NCX TOC. (The NCX TOC is the list of sections and chapters that readers see when the touch the GO TO navigation tool. It’s a must-have for any eBook.)

What this all means is that guidance for publishing an eBook is a moving target. If you really want to play this game, you’ve got to put in some effort to stay on top of the process. As for the reviewer who’s complaining about not grasping the process in an evening, give me a break. We’re talking about creating an idea—which is all an eBook really is—that someone will actually pay cash money for. Maybe there is such a thing as the ’One Minute Book Publisher’, a companion piece to the ‘One Minute Brain Surgeon’, but I’ve never heard of such a thing…

Good luck!

Ten minutes into reading this guide and I'm lost already with plenty more to absorb. Not only that, much as I'd like to devote a whole evening to learning the ropes my time is limited, so well before I've completed my read-up I've had to down tools and change hats, so to speak.
Would have been nice to find the guide to be concise, brief and (wishful thinking), simple.

Hi everyone I am a newbie author in here. I found that your guidebook is quite hard to understand specially to a newbie like me. Much appreciated if it is revised again. Thank you.