[Keith Strohm]

  All,

  I have a question about these two services, but I don't want this to devolve into a "why one is better than the other" thread.

  My question is this: Is there a difference in effectiveness between these two services when it come to visibility at retail channels? In other words, if I were to put the same book for sale on KOBO through both services (obviously not at the same time), would one service net me greater visibility on KOBO? Or is the difference between these services limited to customer experience and pricing?

  Keith

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

If you uploaded your own epub, my guess is it would be equal.

However, if you're using the Meatgrinder, I'm willing to bet you'd do better on D2D because everyone agrees their in house converter is better and that would show in the sample.

Also, that sample would not be your entire book. And if it was and you reported your entire book was being given away as a free sample, D2D would answer 20 minutes later, fix it within two hours, and send you a confirmation the following day that they'd manually checked rather than telling you "tough luck" two weeks later and suggesting you look at the meatgrinder documentation.

You can upload direct to Kobo btw.

 

[dalya]

You mean ... are there some secret algorithms that favor files from one distributor over another?

Well, of course there are!!!

 

[Keith Strohm]

If you uploaded your own epub, my guess is it would be equal.

However, if you're using the Meatgrinder, I'm willing to bet you'd do better on D2D because everyone agrees their in house converter is better and that would show in the sample.

Also, that sample would not be your entire book. And if it was and you reported your entire book was being given away as a free sample, D2D would answer 20 minutes later, fix it within two hours, and send you a confirmation the following day that they'd manually checked rather than telling you "tough luck" two weeks later and suggesting you look at the meatgrinder documentation.

You can upload direct to Kobo btw.

Katie,

Thanks! And yes, I know i can upload directly to Kobo, that was just an example.

Keith

 

[Keith Strohm]

You mean ... are there some secret algorithms that favor files from one distributor over another?

Well, of course there are!!!

Dalya,

See, you just made me feel like a tin-foil wearing, Tempest Cage living conspiracy nut job. And the wordst part is, I don't know whether to believe you or not!

Keith

 

[dalya]

Dalya,

See, you just made me feel like a tin-foil wearing, Tempest Cage living conspiracy nut job. And the wordst part is, I don't know whether to believe you or not!

Keith

I'm very good at bluffing games.

 

[James Bruno]

They both get your books where they need to be and they both take a cut. The difference is that SW sucks and D2D is awesome.

 

[Saul Tanpepper]

You mean ... are there some secret algorithms that favor files from one distributor over another?

Well, of course there are!!!

I can vouch for this. I have books double-listed at B&N and Kobo, through SW and direct. The SW versions are free and the direct ones aren't, yet I sell more than I give away. Clearly both sites are giving preference to books pubbed with them directly (which is fine by me).

As for D2D, I'm switching everything over from SW, but for now am focusing on my iTunes books (which I'm not direct to).

 

[Herc- The Reluctant Geek]

There wouldn't be enough data to make such a call, I would think. I would wait until D2D has gotten out of beta and has a sizable number of books out in the retail outlets before checking out the numbers.

Also, Smash has recently run some promotions at the Apple iBookstore - Australia and Canada I think - where Smash authors were highlighted on the front page. We don't know whether D2D are capable of doing stuff like that. Only time will tell.

 

[AdriannaWhite]

Sigh, I'm going to stick with Smashwords for awhile longer and hope that if more people leave, SW will get faster for the ones that stay. That's probably wishful thinking, in which case, I'll see you all over at D2D in 2014.

 

[dalya]

I can vouch for this. I have books double-listed at B&N and Kobo, through SW and direct. The SW versions are free and the direct ones aren't, yet I sell more than I give away. Clearly both sites are giving preference to books pubbed with them directly (which is fine by me).

As for D2D, I'm switching everything over from SW, but for now am focusing on my iTunes books (which I'm not direct to).

WHAT?!!!

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

I doubt very much that they are giving specific preference, but blurbs that appear better, better samples, and possibly inclusion of keywords in metadata in a different manner could all be having some effect. I can't confirm it, but I've heard that both Kobo and Apple supposedly use the terms embedded in the metadata for their search engines and given how dismal both of their searches are, it's plausible and anything that improves discoverability at all would really help.

 

[RM Prioleau]

I'm going to be giving D2D a try very soon and see how it goes. Everyone seems to be raving over it, so I will see if I have the same results. I don't like SW's Meatgrinder, but it's taken me forever to finally be able to master formatting with it, so I don't want it to be all for nothing.

What I REALLY don't like about SW is that it takes weeks upon weeks just to be approved for premium distribution to other stores. D2D doesn't do this, according to people's reviews. However, at this time, D2D only distributes to the main stores (Amazon, B&N, Kobo) and not places like Sony, Diesel, B&T, and libraries like SW does, so I'm hoping that will change very soon.

 

[Lady Vine]

It doesn't have to be either/or. Until D2D expand to those smaller stores, you can just choose to distribute to them with Smash, and opt out of the bigger stores.

 

[Becca Mills]

Also, that sample would not be your entire book. And if it was and you reported your entire book was being given away as a free sample,

Um ... that happens at SW

<goes off to check sample>

 

[Becca Mills]

Unbelievable. The sample is the whole book for me, too. **** Smashwords.

ETA: And here I was feeling a bit sad that a bunch of people had downloaded the sample but apparently didn't like the book enough to go ahead and buy it. 

 

[valeriec80]

Unbelievable. The sample is the whole book for me, too. **** Smashwords.

That's because you own the book. If you look on your smashwords page, you'll see a little note in the upper right saying as much. Smashwords gives you full access to every book you've published. Log out and try the sample again. Should be a sample and not the whole book now.

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

Um ... that happens at SW??

It's been going on since the summer and people have reported it since then. I only got ahold of an Ipad to look at mine in December. When I complained, their response was more or less it was my fault for not learning how to properly use the meatgrinder to set up a TOC with extra artificial breaks for a 4000 word short story:

Thanks for your email. Our Technical Team is working with Apple to resolve this issue. In the meantime, you can speed up the process by creating natural breaks in the story so that the Apple system properly provides only a sample instead of the whole book. To do so, create a linked TOC per Step 20 of the Style Guide, or make all headings into a "Heading Style."

Best wishes,
-XXXXXXXXXX
Smashwords Content Team

That's because you own the book. If you look on your smashwords page

No, we're not talking about Smashwords. We're talking about books they forward to Apple's iBooks.