I promised a follow up on Ryan Casey’s blog and I always, usually, well… mostly try and keep my promises. Thank goodness I didn’t put a time limit on it!! Because, I admit, it’s taken me a few days longer than normal to get back to you.
I do have a very good reason, I promise. And one I want to share with you. I hope that by explaining my activities over these last few days, I’ll save you from making the same dumb mistakes as I did.
Here’s my story. Recently, I decided that I needed to test one of my books She’s Not You on the other platforms like Smashwords, Draft 2 Digital and even Google Play. The reason for doing so was because I will be releasing Special Agent Francesca on April 5th, and, for the first time, I wanted to make this book available to all channels and not just on Amazon.
Previously, I had cancelled She’s Not You from the KDP Select program so I was free to do with it as I wanted. I spent one very short afternoon researching D2D and then uploaded the book there. Love that site! (following blog will be on the wonders of human contact).
Next, I made up my stubborn, Polish mind to try and forget the nightmare I’d experienced years ago putting a book on Smashwords. I decided they must have updated their system by now. So, I pulled up my big-girl bloomers and spent the next three days agonizing my way through their meatgrinder and styleguide until finally, I broke down and watched the video on setting up the correct table of contents, took out all mentions of Amazon and live links to my books anywhere else and set up the copywrite page in the way they suggested. My perfectly good manuscript for D2D was now acceptable to Smashwords or so I learned when the response to probably my 20th upload said:
Congratulations! There were no AutoVetter errors! Your book is now in the queue for review by our vetting team.
Were there ever prettier words written to a woman on the edge of a killing her computer??
Strutting around the house, feeling damn satisfied, I decided to go to Google Play and figure out their system also. First, I needed to go to the Amazon KDP site and unpublish two box collections that had She’s Not You as one of the books. I hit the button and up popped my worst nightmare – even if the book is unpublished you cannot – CANNOT!!! publish any of those books anywhere else until the Select time on this collection runs out.
I would have to wait until May 30th. EEECCCKKK!!!
Then I got the bright idea to just kill the collection – cancel the set, terminate the blasted thing. Turns out – no can do! Nope! No such thing. You can only unpublish.
CUSSSIINNGGGG!!!
So… I went back to Smashwords, whining, snivelling, calling myself an idiot but in much more severe terms and… I unpublished the book. Then I went to D2D and did the same thing. Now in hindsight (a bit late) (you think??) I checked carefully and realized that with all my box collections, I had no other book unfettered that I could set up on the other sites at this time.
BIGGGGG sigh!!
Then I started to laugh. When I thought about it, I’d actually succeeded in my goal. Now I knew just how to publish the new book on the different sites, didn’t I?
