Slow Listing on Itunes and Barnes and Noble

[cayuga4422308]

I'm curious why my book "Destiny Comes on the Wind - The Legend of Opechancanough" has yet to appear in the Apple itunes and Barnes and Noble stores. Diesel, and Kobo were very quick and Sony was good except for listing the wrong author info on the book listing. I'm still waiting for the Sony listing to be corrected, but that seems to be in the process of getting done. It appears that there are some unresolved issues with Baker & Taylor and Amazon. I opted out at Amazon and listed on KDP to distribute the Kindle version there. As it stands at the moment, half of the "Premium" distribution channels are not functional. Is there any hope that these problems will be solved in the near future?

[Ted]

The Premium Distribution system is working properly for me. All my recent works are showing at B&N and Apple, except ones published in late March and April.

These are issues you mention are caused by individual retailers, not Smashwords, and has nothing to do with the Premium Distribution system.

You don't say how long you've been waiting for your book to appear at B&N or Apple, but it often takes a few weeks to be displayed at B&N, much longer at Apple, depending upon their backlog.

Some of my works appear on B&N the day Smashwords shipped them. Other works appeared on B&N a few weeks after shipping from Smashwords.

You should opt-out of Amazon distribution. I have for all my ebooks. If you choose to join the Amazon Select program you should be aware that Amazon is fiercely protecting its exclusivity agreement nowadays to protect itself against abuse.

I have had problems with Amazon taking 4 months to correct an issue with displaying my works properly, which is not good for sales, so nobody is perfect.

[cayuga4422308]

My book is in the March time frame you mentioned. How do you search for your Apple listing? I have been using itunes to search it.

It took a full month waiting to get premium status, but it's been less than three weeks since it was shipped to all but Amazon. I guess I'll just have to be patient and wait for the individual distributors to get it listed.

[Ted]

You can use iTunes, but Russell Phillips has created some useful tools for Smashwords authors. One of them is for finding your work on iTunes. Here is the link...
www.russellphillipsbooks.co.uk/pages/tools.php

[cayuga4422308]

Just a short follow up to my original post.

As of today, My book listing still has not shown up at Barnes and Noble, Itunes, or Baker and Taylor. My listing on Sony's ebookstore still has the author bio of the wrong author. I have contacted smashwords 3 times regarding these issues with no results to be seen yet. I have used the Russell Phillips tools and searched with my itunes but no listing there either.

I did finally see a ship date for Baker and Taylor dated 2 days ago, so should I be hopeful? I'm not real sure where to look on Baker and Taylor's site for my ebook. Is it supposed to be on blio.com or the BTOL, axis 360, or what?

So far, I'm not real impressed with customer service at smashwords. Do I sit patiently another couple weeks or should I write another email?

[Ted]

I don't think writing another email about your works not appearing on B&N or Apple iTunes will get you any response from Smashwords as it isn't their problem.

Once Smashwords ships the ebooks to retailers it is out of their hands for when a work gets listed by a retailer.

You won't find your work on Baker and Taylor unless you are a library or other subscriber to their axis 360 service.

You can search Blio for you work, but don't be too upset if you don't see it there yet. It's relatively new and full of well established publishers like Disney and authors from B&T.

Regarding Sony eReader store not displaying your description. Contact Sony by email (use the Contact us link on their site), advise them the description of your ebook (provide title and URL) is missing. Include in your email that you've contacted Smashwords and don't know if they have contacted Sony yet so you are doing so. Paste an exact copy of your Smashwords description in the email to Sony in case the service rep does a quick check. Pour a coffee, relax on a lawn chair, enjoy the sun and the scenery, and check sony in about 3 weeks to see if the change actually occurred.

What's really exciting is that Microsoft is including the Nook ebook reader in their Windows 8 OS and also invested in Nook. See this article here... finance.yahoo.com/news/b-n-microsoft-team-nook-104909785.html Maybe an update to Vista will include the Nook reader as well.

This expansion by Microsoft is a shot across the bow of both Google and Amazon, and a real benefit for authors using Smashwords to distribute on B&N.