Hello from Denver - self publishing success

[ChickenHawk]

Go to your Distribution Channel page and opt out of distribution to B&N and Kobo through Smashwords. While you're at it, better opt out of Amazon distribution, too, just in case. Find the link along the left-side menu while you're at your Dashboard.

Thanks so much for the info! That's exactly what I needed to know.

 

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[COSenior]

Thanks so much for the info! That's exactly what I needed to know.

Oops, looks like they've rearranged stuff. Now near the top of the page in the Marketing and Distribution Tools box on the right-hand side.

 

[AubreyRose]

F*ck smashwords, use Draft2Digital to distribute to Kobo and iTunes. They are so much faster and better with payment. SW is only good for free ISBNs and coupons now..

 

[GiroudJD]

F*ck smashwords, use Draft2Digital to distribute to Kobo and iTunes. They are so much faster and better with payment. SW is only good for free ISBNs and coupons now..

My thoughts exactly. I only upload to Smashwords for perma-free on Amazon purposes. For Kobo, iTunes, Nook, etc, I go D2D for them all. Smashwords is terrible otherwise.

 

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[COSenior]

F*ck smashwords, use Draft2Digital to distribute to Kobo and iTunes. They are so much faster and better with payment. SW is only good for free ISBNs and coupons now..

Yeah, I gave up on SW a month ago. AR, has Kobo straightened out their issues with erotica yet?

 

[Breaking Free]

F*ck smashwords, use Draft2Digital to distribute to Kobo and iTunes. They are so much faster and better with payment. SW is only good for free ISBNs and coupons now..

I've been considering this for my next book. How painful is it to migrate from Smashwords to D2D?

 

[Soothesayer]

My thoughts exactly. I only upload to Smashwords for perma-free on Amazon purposes. For Kobo, iTunes, Nook, etc, I go D2D for them all. Smashwords is terrible otherwise.

Same here. I had twenty something books on Smashwords. I took them all down. No reason to make them money if they are not going to step up to the plate. We'll see how D2D works out, but I don't have high hopes for them either. Amazon wins hands down.

 

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[AubreyRose]

I've been considering this for my next book. How painful is it to migrate from Smashwords to D2D?

How many books you got?

Haha, just pay someone you trust to do the data entry for you.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Dang! And I just got set up with Smashwords. I know this might be a stupid question, but if you already have a book on Smashwords, and decided to go with D2D instead, would there be any downside to leaving the first book on Smashwords? I'm still trying to figure out how all these pieces fit together. Thanks for any insight!

 

[Held for Ransom]

Thread marked as Gold -- thank you HFR for all your contributions and for sharing your publishing experience. Carry forth...

Thanks MJ (and everyone else)! I missed all of this since I turned off all my notifications a couple of weeks back so I can stay focused and keep up with everyone else who's killing it now!

Back to the grind...

Dang!

Heh. Love that.

I know this might be a stupid question, but if you already have a book on Smashwords, and decided to go with D2D instead, would there be any downside to leaving the first book on Smashwords?

Not sure I understand the question. What do you mean by downside?

I am assuming you'd be using D2D to go to Apple since you are going direct to B&N and Kobo, no? If that's the case, just disable distribution to Apple in SW once you get going with D2D. It will take a little time for the change to happen but I did something similar last year and it wasn't a problem. The only thing I use SW for anymore is distribution to all those oddball channels and, like Aubrey mentioned, coupons, etc.

 

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[jimr]

Alas, I have another question for anyone who might be able to help. I tried to google this, but couldn't find any clear guidelines...

I've submitted my book to Smashwords, and have been approved for premium distribution. However, based on info in this thread, I went ahead and also submitted my book directly to Barnes & Noble and Kobo. I haven't been approved yet by B&N or Kobo yet, but I assume that will happen within the next couple of weeks. If I proceed with the premium distribution at Smashwords, will that mess up the direct-submission that I've made at B&N and Kobo? For example, will they receive two files of the same book, leading to confusion and delays?

Any thoughts on the best way to proceed? Thanks for any input!

P.S. A funny side note...My book is currently ranked 71 on Amazon Canada. Yay! (Shhhh...Don't tell anyone that I've only sold only 25 copies there this month. But I can't help it, I'm thrilled anyway.)

Nice work on the book sales

 

[ROBugatti]

I started with D2D a couple months ago myself and I've been happy with that platform because it's all-in-one and makes it easier to track everything. I think I might have had a SW account, but whatever I had on there made me ZERO, and now I'm getting sales on D2D, so I'm sticking with it.

 

[Rawr]

Got this in an email from a reader today. Was so good to know you made a difference, really motivating.

Keep up the good work,nothing like a bit of escapism to sooth the soul and inspire a girl.

 

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[rblitz]

Thank you Held for Ransom for this great thread!
I wish you all the best.

May I ask your opinion about writing for a non english audience? As you probably notice english isn't my first language. I'm from Germany so I'm wondering if I can meet the need of scale by publishing my ebooks at Amazon etc.
Is there anything I can do to estimate a rough number whether its worthwhile to write german books? Opposed to you, or everyone else over here I can only reach a very small fraction.

Thanks in advance and keep up your amazing work!

 

[Commando]

F*ck smashwords, use Draft2Digital to distribute to Kobo and iTunes. They are so much faster and better with payment. SW is only good for free ISBNs and coupons now..

Does Draft2Digital require an ISBN?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

For the life of me, I still don't get why you guys use 3rd party middlemen to deliver content when you can go right to the source, knock out the middleman, get paid more, and get paid faster. I go direct to Kobo. I go direct to Kindle. I go direct to iTunes. I don't f*ck around with these 3rd party middlemen that scrape my profits and take forever to pay. I also ship to Baker and Taylor. I ship to Canada Amazon. I have a LS account for UK. All this talk about SW and D2D has me shaking my head. Want to be a Fastlane publisher? Go STRAIGHT to your distribution channel. Or don't-- and keep paying unnecessary cover charges while someone holds your money.

 

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[joanna]

I'd say because the amount of sales coming from some of the extra channels don't warrant me spending time dealing with it. iTunes is a pain from the UK. Kobo and Amazon (Kindle / CS) are quick and easy, AR is a pain (someone needs a website update and a lesson in UX, sheesh) but at least you don't have to jump through hoops. At the same time, if Smashwords gets me a few extra sales without any extra hassle then I'll take that. I tried google books, wasted plenty of time for nothing on that thing.

 

[AubreyRose]

For the life of me, I still don't get why you guys use 3rd party middlemen to deliver content when you can go right to the source, knock out the middleman, get paid more, and get paid faster. I go direct to Kobo. I go direct to Kindle. I go direct to iTunes. I don't f*ck around with these 3rd party middlemen that scrape my profits and take forever to pay. I also ship to Baker and Taylor. I ship to Canada Amazon. I have a LS account for UK. All this talk about SW and D2D has me shaking my head. Want to be a Fastlane publisher? Go STRAIGHT to your distribution channel. Or don't-- and keep paying unnecessary cover charges while someone holds your money.

I go direct when I can - Kindle, B&N, ARE. You have to have an Apple computer to upload direct to iTunes, and I've heard their interface sucks. I'd like to go direct through Kobo and was planning on it this year, but then the whole self-pub fiasco happened and... well, F*ck Kobo.

It's just not worth the hassle for me right now, iTunes and Kobo together make up less than 1% of my profits. If sales exploded at one of those channels and it made sense for me to pay my assistant to do the uploading or buy an Apple computer to do that, I would.

 

[Rawr]

I go direct when I can - Kindle, B&N, ARE. You have to have an Apple computer to upload direct to iTunes, and I've heard their interface sucks. I'd like to go direct through Kobo and was planning on it this year, but then the whole self-pub fiasco happened and... well, F*ck Kobo.

It's just not worth the hassle for me right now, iTunes and Kobo together make up less than 1% of my profits. If sales exploded at one of those channels and it made sense for me to pay my assistant to do the uploading or buy an Apple computer to do that, I would.

Yep.. no roommate/gf with a mac here.


Kobo told me if you make less than $100 a month with them... they pay once per year. I couldn't believe it.

 

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[webcomber]

I-Tunes Connect also makes you fill out a bunch of legal documents that post your actual name as the "seller" of the book even if you use a pen name. So unless you have a company name or legal DBA with legal docs that you must upload, you actually show your real name with the pen name if you are a sole proprietor uploading directly to I-Tunes Connect (the book platform). This is very unfortunate if you post in various genres with pen names, or you just don't want to use your real name for whatever reason.

Other posters above had a lot of questions that I had with Smashwords and other distributors. How the heck does this all fit together? I found out later that many authors use a service for all the smaller or fringe platforms just to get them out of the way, but upload direclty to the big four: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and I-tunes. The reason they upload directly to the big four is because distributors pay significantly less than if you just upload direct. The other smaller publishing platforms that they don't want to bother with are just delegated to a distributor for convenience since sales are typically not worth the effort or the lost profits for delegating out these smaller platforms. That's if they use them at all. That is pretty much what I've seen.

 

[Rolfp2]

What types of agreements do most of the multi-distributors have to limit you from posting your content elsewhere?

 

[mossie]

This is a great thread HfR. You have been motivating many people with this. I am grateful for your guidance.

 

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[AubreyRose]

What types of agreements do most of the multi-distributors have to limit you from posting your content elsewhere?

none. They have no leverage against authors; they want you to pub through them even if it's just one sales channel so there's no reason to limit authors in that way since we'd just go elsewhere. You can even pub on Nook Press, say, and pub the same book to B&N through SW and it will just have a duplicate copy of the book on B&N.

 

[AroundTheWorld]

I-Tunes Connect also makes you fill out a bunch of legal documents that post your actual name as the "seller" of the book even if you use a pen name. So unless you have a company name or legal DBA with legal docs that you must upload, you actually show your real name with the pen name if you are a sole proprietor uploading directly to I-Tunes Connect (the book platform). This is very unfortunate if you post in various genres with pen names, or you just don't want to use your real name for whatever reason.

What name would they use if you use your legal company name?

 

[Rolfp2]

none. They have no leverage against authors; they want you to pub through them even if it's just one sales channel so there's no reason to limit authors in that way since we'd just go elsewhere. You can even pub on Nook Press, say, and pub the same book to B&N through SW and it will just have a duplicate copy of the book on B&N.

Oh ok. Thanks for the info

 

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[Lauryn]

Is it lazy that I focus only on Kindle and Pubit...?

Like, I plan to put my products in print, but unless it's in PDF (in which case I can use Selz or Gumroad), I stick with Kindle because it accounts for the greater majority of my sales. For the most part, you can upload to the other channels and distributors, but after all the hassle it's not like you're truly getting your money's worth from energy expended.

If someone likes the material enough, they'll bend and go to Kindle or Nook. Maybe even Google Play.

Then again I'll be honest... the nature of the material I write probably keeps me from trying the other formats also.

 

[AubreyRose]

Createspace doesn't give sales, what it gives is the illusion of a deal on your ebook. The createspace copy will ALWAYS have a higher pagecount, and when you price it high it makes the kindle price look like you're saving a lot of money. Check out how the pricing looks on my novel here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DK8LG52/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Of course it's not worth it to do for shorts, but if you ever do collections or novels, it's absolutely worth it imo.

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Of course it's not worth it to do for shorts, but if you ever do collections or novels, it's absolutely worth it imo.

I've put two of my novellas through Createspace, and it cost me nothing but around 30 mins of my time, while giving the benefits of having a paperback you already mentioned (plus an easy extra income stream).


Why isn't it worth it outside of novels and collects? I'd argue it's pretty valuable, even for novellas.

Here's a good example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I7G9QGS/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Yesterday, that was listed as having 63 pages (estimated), given the way she formats the paperback, it nearly doubled the page count to 118. And you can be sure she's probably selling plenty of copies of that series through paperback, and they're all about 100 pages.

 

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[Rawr]

I am having a terrible time with CreateSpace, books keep coming back with errors, and I couldn't find what margins I need in scrivener. Does anyone use a PC version and know how to align the book/cover?

 

[AubreyRose]

whoops double post