[SBJones]

Back in December I uploaded my third book, Sentinel, to Smashwords and it took about 16 days for it to get approved for premium status.  I was extremely disappointed to say the least.  When my first novel fell out of select on March 3rd I uploaded it and took five days to get approved.  Much improved.  My latest work I uploaded around midnight Sunday and its been approved already.  I would say easily less than 48 hours from upload to approved.

I still have to scratch my head on how books are distributed to other outlets.  Kobo has my new series, but not the trilogy, and Barnes and Noble is the opposite, they have the trilogy, but not the new stuff, and Apple is off smelling butterfly farts as far as I can tell and has nothing.

So I hope Smashwords is upping their game by getting books approved faster and my first experience wasn't just caused by a huge backlog created by everyone taking the holidays off.

 

[MegHarris]

Getting my books approved faster (and I agree they are moving faster) means nothing if they don't ever get to iTunes. I have several that have been waiting eight weeks now, and I sent an email to Smashwords this morning asking them what the deal was. I haven't heard back yet. It may well be a matter out of their control, but it's frustrating, and if iTunes has decided simply not to carry any erotica, I do wish Smashwords would simply say so. (The note on the Channel Manager page specifies Apple may take "two weeks, sometimes longer." It would be helpful to know how much longer, and if they simply are refusing to carry some stuff now.)

 

[Todd Young]

Getting my books approved faster (and I agree they are moving faster) means nothing if they don't ever get to iTunes. I have several that have been waiting eight weeks now, and I sent an email to Smashwords this morning asking them what the deal was. I haven't heard back yet. It may well be a matter out of their control, but it's frustrating, and if iTunes has decided simply not to carry any erotica, I do wish Smashwords would simply say so. (The note on the Channel Manager page specifies Apple may take "two weeks, sometimes longer." It would be helpful to know how much longer, and if they simply are refusing to carry some stuff now.)

They vet their erotica books. I don't know what the process entails exactly, but it takes several weeks.

 

[MegHarris]

They vet their erotica books. I don't know what the process entails exactly, but it takes several weeks.

I uploaded a bunch at the beginning of the year, and quite a few of them went up within two weeks or so. On 1/21, suddenly something changed, and not a single one of my erotic romances has appeared on iTunes since then. It would appear either there's a problem, or iTunes just doesn't like me any more *smiles wryly*.

 

[Todd Young]

What would be nice would be to get a simple "yes" or "no". As things stand, I simply check in every couple of weeks and am unsurprised to see that nothing has changed.

 

[NicWilson]

Good to see that I'm not the only one who has had issues with them "distributing" to Apple, and having it never appear. My novel has been out nearly six months, and been distributed to apple a few times as I updated the back-matter or cover, but has NEVER shown up in their store, as near as I can tell. If they vet "mature" material, even though mines not erotica, maybe it got caught in that. Sure would have been nice to actually get a notification, though.