Do I Stay on Smashwords?

D2D (aka Draft to Digital) merged with Smashwords in 2022. At the time, D2D said they'd move all publishers from the Smashwords database to theirs.

Two years later, none of my boos have been moved. Many friends, still using Smashwords, whose books were move were told that D2D could not be distributed for various reasons. But let's face facts, most of those books D2D would not accept were erotica or erotic romance.

*sigh* Sometimes, I feel like the 2013 Pornacolypse has never ended, and its spilled over to touch everything.

I'm currently making some changes to my business plan, and I'm looking at some new avenues to selling my books. There also avenues I've been using for the last thirteen-plus years that I'm analyzing the old avenues.

I know a lot of folks love buying their reads on  Smashwords, and D2D has signaled its going to keep the Smashwords storefront to sell books. But under my current plan, I'm no longer selling as much on Smashwords as I did before the merger was announced. In fact, I haven't broken $13 for the last two years for the Suzan Harden titles. The Alter Ego tomes do better, but they are also going downhill.

So, I'm looking at removing all of my books off Smashwords. And that's taking into account that Alter Ego's revenue that can pay for five pizzas a year.

However, I'm not looking to hurt any readers who rely on Smashwords to obtain their books. If anyone has an objections to this plan of action, add a comment or you can contact me privately, via the Contact Me page.

What's Authors Guild Really Up To?

Authors Guild has finagled several indie book distributors into sending emails to their customers/vendors. They are asking indies to tell them how much they make.

So far, I've received emails from Alliance of Independent Authors, Barnes & Noble, and D2D/Smashwords. I fairly sure Amazon, Apple, and GooglePlay will refuse or have refused to participate. I'm waiting to see if I get anything from Kobo or IngramSparks. I've asked around, and several writers I personally know have received these emails. So far, none of these people are planning to respond to the survey.

Why does Authors Guild want this information? Because they've been trying to make the case that author incomes are down across the board. As far as I know, they been doing this survey amongst their membership for the last five years.

But here's the problem. There's been an active anti-indie vibe within AG for the last fifteen years. In fact, AG didn't make a big announcement regarding finally accepting indie members in 2014. They quietly slipped the change into their membership rules.

And frankly, I have a problem with the criteria AG and most other professional writer organizations have for accepting indie writers. I could get $500 advance for a novel from one of the Big Five, and the offer letter is sufficient for membership to AG. It doesn't matter whether I make another penny on that book. However, as an indie, I have to prove I made ten times that amount in one year on one book to become a member. Sorry, but that's just not right.

Furthermore, I don't feel comfortable showing statements from my distributors or my bank account statements to random strangers. Most other writers I know don't either. Frankly, that level of detail is no one's fucking business other than my husband's and our CPA's. Well, and the IRS.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I fear how this information will be used. I understand that we indies are very individualistic. I also understand we don't have a centralized repository for information. However, we were the ones that the Big Five didn't want, so why is AG so interested in our information?

I can only think that AG and their buddies, the Big Five and agents, are looking to copy our techniques even more than they already are.

D2D Got a Clue, and Maybe Barnes & Noble Did, Too

Last Friday, I talked about D2D's announcement to their indie author clients that Barnes & Noble was only going to pay 30% of the receipts due to them. Meanwhile, indie distributor Smashwords announced Barnes & Noble was paying them in full for their clients' receipts.

(Full disclosure: I use Smashwords for distribution to some smaller retailers, but I upload all books directly to Barnes & Noble.)

Needless to say, Barnes & Noble ("B&N") was major topic of conversation among the various indie forums over the weekend. Maybe B&N realized who's really making money for them during the pandemic. I mean, it's not like the brick & mortar bookstores are considered essential services by the various governors and mayors desperately attempting stop the spread of COVID-19.

In a turnaround over the weekend, both B&N and D2D said B&N was paying D2D in full. The other side of the rumor mill said when B&N ran the numbers, they thought D2D was a larger publisher. And it's the big publisher who were only getting 30% of receipts due.

Oh, boy!

That's not necessarily a good thing either. Especially for writers who are fully trad published.

On a side bar, a note appeared on my B&N dashboard that I would be paid in full this week. We'll see what happens by Friday. It's low double digits since I'm rebuilding my own publishing company. However, I'm not holding my breath.

Is This the End of Barnes & Noble?

A lot of U.S. businesses were struggling before the COVID-19 pandemic hit our shores. Bookstore chain Barnes & Noble ("B&N") was one of them.

They thought they'd found their white knight when Elliot Management Corporation, the same hedge fund that purchased Waterstone's in the U.K., bought them last August.

Flash-forward to seven months later. B&N has closed over 400 of their stores thanks to the outbreak of COVID-19. States and cities with stay-at-home orders rarely list bookstores as essential operations. So a company already teetering on the edge has no lifeline.

They've still been selling paper books and e-books to the public for the last two months. But another issue has arisen. This week, B&N told Draft2Digital ("D2D"), an e-book distribution company, they would only pay 30% of the revenue owed to D2D's customers.

Excuse me?

I get that D2D is trying to make things right with their customers. D2D may have made their own position worse by taking out a loan to cover the other 70% of what B&N owes to D2D's clients/writers. Given the current economic situation, covering a third party's debt can put your own business in a precarious situation.

On the other side is Smashwords ("SW"), who has announced they are receiving the full amount owed to their customers.

Since I go direct with B&N, I have no idea if I'll receive the funds due to me. I guess I'll find out next week. On one hand, I can afford their lack of payment from a business perspective. On the other hand, do I need to start pulling my books off their site again?

I had to do this five years ago when B&N was having problems. I've been gradually restoring the Angry Sheep catalog to B&N. Instead of spending next week writing and editing to get Magick and Murder out on time, I'll have to spend part of that time dealing with this mess.

I wish I could say I was surprised by all this, but I'm not. The traditional publishing companies have been approaching the same cliff as B&N. It'll be interesting to see which companies survive the side effects of COVID-19.

To Distribute or Not To Distribute

Not a whole lot has changed in the nearly  three years since I first talked about distributors. If anything more distributors for e-books have joined the fray since Smashwords opened their doors. The problem is that many distributors are distributing in order to get their claws in the burgeoning indie market without regard to long-term implications.

And yes, despite claims that e-book sales are down or flat, many of these pundits have no accurate way to count indie books that don't use ISBNs. Amazon isn't about to inform them either.

Is it worth it to use a distributor?

Three years ago, I said yes, if only to get into Apple, Kobo and Sony. None of these retailers allowed direct uploads from individual writers at the time. Sony still doesn't. But three years ago, the only distributor to handle indie e-books was Smashwords.

There were complaints about Smashwords at the time, primarily about their trademarked Meatgrinder software that converted a MS-WORD file to various formats for distribution. Smashwords has since upgraded so you can upload an EPUB file. However, the EPUB must pass EPUB3 check (which, frankly in my personal opinion, is a bogus, bullshit way of trying to keep some books out of the market). But you still have to upload the MS-WORD file in order to convert to MOBI and other formats.

Since 2011, Kobo and Apple have launched their own self-publishing initiatives. Unfortunately, as the Kernel Pornopocalyspe showed, using Kobo's Writing Life shows their utter disregard for indie authors regardless of their genre. Apple insists that you can only upload through a Mac or other Apple device.

More companies have popped up since 2011 offering to distribute your e-books to retailers.

One of the most popular is Draft2Digital, aka D2D. They currently only distribute to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. They ran in to a major snag during the Kernel Pornpocalypse when their entire catalog was deleted from the Kobo retail site. They have worked hard to settle the situation for the benefit of their e-book vendors

While I have no complaints about D2D's handling of the matter with Kobo, I had problem with a particular book passing the EPUB 3 check for distribution to Apple in June. Again, this was not something that was D2D's fault. Because of my family's moving situation, I marked the book as 'Do Not Distribute' to Apple on June 10. I saved the e-mail confirming the book's status.

Out of the blue in October, I received a notice from D2D that the book had been rejected by Apple. When I went online, my D2D dashboard said the book had been sent to Apple, but the book's individual record page said it was stil marked as do not distribute. After several frustrating e-mails with a young woman in Customer Service where she basically accused me of lying about the situation, I was so angry that I called D2D president Kris Austin and told him to delete my account.

My experience with XinXii wasn't much better. The company started as a German e-book retailer, but has expanded into distribution to the major retailers (Amazon, Apple, Kobo, etc.). I have sold books in Germany, but only through Amazon DE. The year and a half I was with XinXii I didn't sell a single thing, but there are American indie writers who sold very through them. My problem with them began when they switched to an opt-out method instead of opt-in and only gave vendors two days to opt out.

In all fairness, Smashwords has also switched to opt-out for new markets, but they give vendors at least two weeks notice.

Overdrive focuses on the library and educational markets, but they do some distribution to retailers. They still doesn't distribute for individual indie writers. In theory, writers could form their own company to apply with Overdrive, but so far I haven't heard from anyone if it's worth distributing through them.

If you write romance, in ANY of its subgenres, check out All Romance e-Books. They are primarily a retailer, but they do distribute to the major markets. I haven't applied to them yet, but there are some legal matters involving Angry Sheep Publishing since I want to apply as a company.

So does using a distributor make sense?

It depends on your resources and plans. For me, uploading directly to Amazon and Barnes & Noble makes sense as long as books are $2.99 and up. Below that I actually earn more by distributing through Smashwords.

DH has suggested that I buy a MacBook for the sole purpose of directly uploading to Apple since my sales have improved significantly during 2013. I don't know if I want to deal directly with Apple considering some their previous behavior.

Kobo? It's going to take a lo-o-o-ong time to forgive their extreme over-reaction during the Kernel Pornocalypse before I would try them. I wasn't harmed, but I know too many authors who were.

One last word of warning, do not take my word or anyone else's concerning any distributors. Do your own investigating and do what's best for your business.