Tag: Draft2Digital

Perspective & Texture

As of this morning I’m still sitting in limbo on my book. The 24Symbols platform via Draft2Digital still has not managed to get me delisted 10 days after I put in my initial request. I have been off all other platforms with the exception of Kindle since about 8 days ago.

I’m not so frustrated by the fact that I’m losing out on potential sales from those platforms I’m no longer listed on because I hadn’t actually sold any through them in the first place. I am frustrated because I’m potentially missing out on readers through Kindle Unlimited because I can’t set it up until I’m completely off all other platforms with the ebook and I HAVE gotten all my sales through Amazon.

I emailed D2D again yesterday and they said they were working with 24S to get this straightened out. If someone were to ask me today, I’d probably have to say they should avoid the 24Symbols platform at all costs. It seems to be problematic as they were also one of the ones that took the longest to publish out to. I don’t have anything negative to say about D2D at this point as they have done a good job of responding to my emails and may be working to help this along, though that doesn’t do much for my frustration levels.

Yes, I may have just hit the unlucky spot with my timing and this isn’t actually normal for them, but trying to market a self-published book is hard enough without these kinds of roadblocks and speed bumps dropped along the way.

Glitches and Delays

I had said the other day that I was going to try and get my book in Kindle Unlimited. In order to do that, I needed to remove the ebook from all platforms that weren’t Kindle. I requested that my book be delisted on Draft2Digital on the 14th. It is now the 20th and 24symbols (which I’d never even heard of before I went to publish) STILL hasn’t removed my listing.

You cannot list with Kindle Unlimited if your book is available digitally anywhere else. It is an exclusive contract. So still being listed is preventing me from making the shift. On every other platform I was off within less than 3 days, some in less than a day. This one doesn’t seem willing to let go for some reason.

I’ve contacted D2D, so hopefully this will get resolved soon, but it is starting to really tick me off. I did some looking to see how long it is supposed to take and I saw an old post complaining about the 24symbols platform taking so long, so this is not apparently a new issue. I have nothing but good things to say about D2D even if I am switching because they really are an amazing publishing option. I’d just be exceptionally leery of ever pushing to the 24symbols platform if I ever decided to go back to D2D. If I remember correctly, they were also the one that took nearly 2 weeks to load my book in the first place.

So, for anyone that was waiting for this to go to KU… I’m still working on it. I promise.

An Unexpected Turn: Availability

In roughly 24 hours after hitting publish, my book is now available on almost every platform I published on. I only have one or two much smaller ones to go, but all of the major platforms has it listed. Don’t forget to rate it and/or leave a review if you decide to check it out!

Amazon Kindle
Amazon Paperback*
Barns & Noble/Nook
Kobo
Apple Books
Scribd
Playster

*The paperback is available for print, but it hasn’t linked up to the Kindle version and also has a glitch in the layout of the description, so I’m waiting to hear back from Amazon about resolving the issue. None of that impacts the fact that it is available and the book itself has no issues. I have several ordered and on their way.

 

Crazy Self-Publishing Process

When I first looked into the possibility of self-publishing, most all of the steps looked pretty easy. At its base, you write a book then find a platform and hit publish. While you can do it that way, chances are it won’t really go that well for you because a few critical steps have most likely been missed along the way. That is unless you are also an artist, cover designer, interior book designer*, editor and/or have friends and family willing to do those things for you.

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