Woot! It’s finally happened! #IWSG #booksky

It’s finally happened! I’m now on Draft2Digital. You may have been there for two years, I know, but there was a hitch for those of us that had publisher accounts AND author accounts at Smashwords. I’d been 14 years with Smashwords almost to the day. It was December 2011 that I published the Princelings of the East on Smashwords. So what difference does it make?

This is my Insecure Writers Support Group post, in which we share our successes and failures as writers, our insecurities, in fact. Anyone can join in, just sign up at the IWSG Sign-up page, write a blog post on the first Wednesday of the month, and go back to that sign up page to link with everyone else–or a goodly sample. Our host is Alex J Cavanaugh, and cohosting this month are:

Tara Tyler, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, Liza, and Natalie Aguirre

It’s happened! What now?

So, I woke up on a Saturday morning to an email from Draft2Digital. I was now transferred to them, and I could log in and get started, I did just that.

It was almost that easy. Just getting the right username and password on a different website is not straightforward. Apple stores them all securely for me. Then I checked that all my titles were there, and they were, even the ones that I’d unpublished. Well, they never know when an author is going to republish something, I suppose.

I should have got a pop-up to tell me to sort my finances out, but I browsed a bit and went to the FAQs to get the hang of what was changing. It’s a very comprehensive set of FAQs. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be some questions that dummies like me frequently ask that aren’t covered. Although… no, they are pretty comprehensive.

Changes

Some of the changes are the way ebooks are published – which looks to make things even easier. You don’t even have to set up your pages before and after the actual manuscript. They will do those for you, you just set up what you need for them; then they can use the same approach for all your books, including adding new titles in the end pages… I think they update the previous files, but I’m not sure of that.

The most important thing is to do my tax form to get paid, and to tell them where to pay me. How it happened in the past was via Paypal. Now it can go direct to my bank account, and I don’t get that little extra skimmed off by Paypal!

After that, I could just sit back and see what happened next. Or read some interesting posts in their blog. But it’s an opportunity to try a few things out, and to update my webpages with the Books2Read links. The Smashwords links (and any discount coupons that are hanging around) will continue, though. That’s good because I use coupon codes to sell things like ebook gift sets as Christmas presents. I didn’t want them messed up at this time of year!

So, a time for some exploration, some new strategies. It might be easier to reissue my print books with D2D, since the shipping issue has happened once more with my current set-up. But I investigated the audiobook link, and whilst they publish audiobooks in conjunction with what used to be Faraway Voices, there is no auditioning for narrators or help with recording. So it looks like I’m back to ACX unless someone has tested out a system Google told me was on Fiverr. So that’s an urgent and important project for the new year.

If you’re with D2D, or have audiobooks, are there any hints and tips you want to leave me in the comments?

Question of the Month

As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received?

IWSG December 25

I know I’ve had some cool gifts…but when you do all your writing, promos and buddying online, it’s hard to think of things. It’s not like I’m using them here on my desk to remind me…. no, I’ve just checked the desk.

I think somebody may have given me Self-editing for Fiction Writers, which I would have put on my Amazon list. That’s been a really valuable tool, and because it’s a paperback, it’s something you can go and curl up with and cogitate different strategies – some chapters are really like that. It’s one of the few books I have where I’ve underlined things. I’m more likely to take notes when reading a reference book.

But…talking of gifts, would you like to help out a few people with the Giftmas 2025 appeal, which started on Monday, runs to 8 December and is organised by Rhonda Parrish?

Rhonda does it as a fundraiser for the Edmonton, Alberta, Food Bank. If you don’t want to make a donation to that, then keep in the spirit of things by adding a little something to a foodbank collection in your own store, or donating to your local foodbank. And if you are in need, don’t be too proud to nip to your foodbank and ask for help. Writing does not make you rich, famous, or put much food on the table for most authors.

My actual promo post for Giftmas is on Friday with some flash fiction and a giveaway. Please come back then and see what’s happening in other places too.