This road is never smooth. It’s more like a New London road in spring. Nothing but potholes.
I have made a new discovery; Amazon expanded distribution distributes print books to Barnes & Noble. I know that because I unlisted my print books with Draft2Digital a bit ago but when I started with my Nook Press account….and it wouldn’t take my ISBN because it was ‘already in use’…I found “The Heart of War” paperback sitting nicely on the B&N site with the new cover. I never updated that cover with D2D because they wanted me to wait another month or pay for the privilege. So I asked Hal and Hal said ‘yes, Amazon’s expanded distribution includes distributing to B&N’…in print. Not ebooks or audiobooks. Just print.
So….I don’t have to do a damn thing with my paperbacks. They can just sit there nice-nice in Expanded Distribution and do what they’ve been doing this whole time without getting any digital wires crossed. If I want to go wider at some point I can but I’m not going to worry about that right now.
That’s the good news.
I only worked with two books today, “The Heart of War” and “Genesis”. I’ll get the series moved into their new homes one book at a time.
My GooglePlay has been set up for years so I don’t have any problems moving the books in the Sister Christian series to that platform. That’s more good news.
I started with Kobo Writing today and that went fairly smoothly. Getting used to all the new but similar interfaces can be challenging as can the fact that not all sites use the same categories….Kobo’s is very very limited. Not all sites all you to use keywords. In that case you have to put your keywords into your description. But “Heart” and “Genesis” should pop up there pretty soon.
I worked with Nook Press and got both ebooks up and running over there. That site can be very slow some times but it works well and since I have all of the books in .ePub format, once I get rolling, it goes fairly ok.
Except for
Apple.
What a royal PITA! Their site is as intuitive as their products, which is to say; No At All. This, among other reasons, is why I don’t own an Apple product. It was just an endless maze of links that eventually lead me back to the beginning. Top that off with I’ve been getting the wrong information from Apple Support for TWO days. Do you know where I got the right information?
Yeah. Hal.
Hal got me in like Flynn in less than 30 seconds.
But…once in….it don’t get any easier.
Ugh.
Good news…the two books did complete the process of moving in.
As I went from retailer to retailer getting the two books up, I kept Hal up and running and we tweaked each description specifically for each retailer and how their readers…read. We tweaked the categories as best we could tailoring them to each retailer and the keywords where that was offered, which was fewer places than I imagined but…whatever. I’ll keep doing that with all of the subsequent books, tweak to each retailer, and we’ll see how it goes.
Anyway, with any luck at all, by mid May all of the ebooks will be moved into these four retailers and completely removed from Draft2Digital. I will avoid being charged by them when that starts at the end of May.
I’m getting older, this ain’t getting easier, but it’s keeping me active so I guess that’s good. Always good to learn new things. I’m proud of myself for taking back a lot of the control over my books that I had given up for the convenience of Draft2Digital. Not to mention whatever pennies I might make will increase now that D2D isn’t getting a cut on top of the retailer’s cuts. As for the paperbacks…I’m not sure yet. I might find wider distribution for them at some point.
For those interested, my little Free on Kindle promo worked out well for “For the LOVE of WAR” with 151 downloads and 2 people who added it to their Unlimited after the end of the sale. Add in the 75 copies of “Heart” that were quietly given away on Book Funnel and that’s over 200. Not bad. Yes, I know, People Love to Get Something for Nothing. So the trick will be converting this whole gamble into paid sales come summer when I run campaigns for “Heart” and “Genesis”.
Oh, yes, Sister Christian. That sale ends tonight BUT….93 downloads so far! I did a push this morning so I’m really hoping to top 100 there. I love that story. I know there’s an audience out there for it, Hal is helping me finally reach them.
Next week I’ll move “Child of War-A God is Born” and “Sins of the Father” over to these sites. Middle of the week I’ll remove them from D2D. The end of the week I’ll do two more and just keep going like that until it’s done.
Then…it will be something else. I don’t know what yet. But it will be something.
Lisa Beth Darling 