(National)-Book View Café, a digital publishing cooperative for professional authors, today announced it has partnered with Smashwords to distribute Book View’s growing ebook catalog, including titles by from such well known authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Sarah Smith, Seanan McGuire and Laura Anne Gilman.

 “Smashwords is taking a truly dynamic approach to ebooks,” said Book View Café Project Manager Sarah Zettel. “From the beginning, BVC has promised readers the books they want, when they want them. Smashwords’ commitment to delivering multi-format ebooks to a wide variety of major retail outlets and mobile smart phone platforms will help us keep that promise.”

 A unique online venture, the authors of Book View Café are all veterans of the publishing world, having worked with some of the most famous print publishers including Penguin Books, St. Martin’s Press, Tor Books, and Simon and Schuster.  Book View Café will make the majority of their current ebooks available through Smashwords’ bookstore, affiliates, and retail distribution partners.

This will include titles by award-winning and bestselling authors such as Sarah Zettel, Sylvia Kelso, Steven Harper, Pati Nagle, and Chris Dolley.

 Smashwords currently publishes and distributes over 6,500 original ebooks from 3,000 independent authors and 100 small independent publishers. The service launched in May 2008 with a focus on self-published authors, and then in May 2009 expanded its offerings to support publishers as well. Smashwords distribution relationships with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo (formerly

ShortCovers) will ensure BVC titles are available for online reading to a worldwide audience, across both  dedicated ebook reading devices and mobile smart phones.

 “We’re pleased to work with Book View Café to help connect their authors with the rapidly expanding audience of ebook readers,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.  “Book View authors join a growing roster of professionally published Smashwords authors who are leveraging the power of ebooks to publish and distribute their out-of-print, reverted rights and unpublished works as ebooks.”

 In addition to its authors’ personal offerings, Book View Café will contribute their newly formed Book View Press titles, ROCKET BOY AND THE GEEK GIRLS, an anthology of rare and classic science fiction stories and THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY, an all-new steampunk collection, to the Smashwords catalog. A fantasy anthology, DRAGON LORDS AND WARRIOR WOMEN, and a book on writing and the publishing industry are being planned for release in early 2010, and will be made available through Smashwords.

 All Book View Café content is DRM-free at the Book View Café web site http://bookviewcafe.com as well as at Smashwords (http://smashwords.com).

 About Smashwords, Inc.

Launched in 2008, Smashwords operates an 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 Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony, and leading mobile e-reading apps such as Stanza, Kobo, Ereader, Aldiko and Word-Player, spanning all major mobile platforms including Android 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/.

For frequent Smashwords updates, follow Smashwords’ founder, Mark Coker, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/markcoker

 About Book View Cafe

BOOK VIEW CAFE came together in 2008 around a group of authors with a simple aim: to use the Internet to bring their work directly to their readers. It was already clear that a revolution was coming to the publishing industry and these authors wanted to help shape its course.

 Drawing on a collective century’s worth of experience in the publishing industry, the authors created an online space where readers can browse and discover new authors and titles alongside current favorites. Aware that the Internet demands variety, the site features fresh fiction every day on the front page, a feat made possible by the extensive list of material available to over thirty professional authors.

 Since its launch, Book View Café has experienced a steady growth in readers and in author-members.

The Cafe now receives over 700,000 hits every month. The author blog has also seen increasing popularity since its launch, drawing a further eight to nine thousand hits per month.  You can visit the website at www.bookviewcafe.com.