D2D Merger Concerns

[alhawke]

Who else has merged Smashwords with D2D? I had imagined it'd lead to mixing the retailers in ONE book for each merger. Instead I now have duplicates of all 30 books  Is that temporary? Do I delete one? I'm confused. I've put in a message with D2D.

[TimothyEllis]

There was an email sent out a good while back saying you'd end up with two accounts on D2D.

It's not that much of a merge at this stage. More like a duplication.

You should get back a message saying that.

[Lynn]

Two accounts, then they started doing a merge if you have both under a single email address, likely in response to complaints like the one I sent when I ended up with multiple accounts.

I sure hope when they merge my main one, I don't end up with duplicate books also, because that sounds worse than having two accounts.

[alhawke]

And then I don't get why the delay ??? If they're going to just add the books as duplicates, why weren't they able to "merge" mine a year ago. 

[cecilia_writer]

They claimed to be starting on my merge months ago, but it certainly is taking a while. I have most of my stuff on Smashwords under my pen-name, and a handful of things on D2D under my real name. I can't even remember why I bothered to set up the D2D account in the first place. I would have unpublished everything from it if I'd know about the merger but by the time I thought of it I was apparently too late.

[Lynn]

I just noticed my email today. I also had my accounts merged finally. Yes, I have a lot of duplicates. Luckily I didn't have them all listed on D2D because I never got around to it, so it's not as bad as it could be.

[djmills]

My merger has just been completed.
It looks to me like my D2D print books are a separate listing to my Smashwords eBooks for each publication because of the ISBNs. I am happy to wait and see, because my D2D print books are still selling at least one a month just fine.

[alhawke]

I took two books and just deleted them from Smashwords and Everand, republishing them. Deleting the accounts with Smashwords might be my best bet to solve duplicates. I have few if any reviews on Smashwords and it won't hurt to re-publish all my books there.  Their merging function just isn't working.

[alhawke]

Wow. It only gets worse. I'm beginning to think I'd be better off deleting all books from Smashwords and resubmitting--which I've done a few times. Problem is, that leads to a new book link and barring me from entering other retailers. Trouble is, newest problem is that the system is not letting me readjust pricing. It says there are duplicates under the same ISBN. So... I just delete the merger copy again. Again, the solution is to just delete the whole thing and start over.

Customer service only allows 1 email per customer. Because, of course, they're being inundated with this merger disaster.

If anyone has other aggregates they'd recommend, let me though. I'm that upset about this.

[djmills]

I just read an article on merging duplicate Smashwords books on D2D with the Book Merge tool, by Mark Leslie Lefebvre at https://wideforthewin.com/campus/space/draft2digitalcom/post/merging-duplicate-books-on-dra
However, D2D have removed the tool because they are updating the tool at the moment. I guess we can merge our books once the tool is available again on D2D.

[alhawke]

It's a big mess. Once you move one, it blocks the other. I have about 5 books now blocked from 4 libraries and Hoopla. I don't mind if they're taken off and resubmitted, because I don't have many reviews on the Smashwords store, but I do mind that I now can't get these titles back in the aggregator retailers. One reason I was forced to delete 2 titles was the system was not allowing me to change pricing--again due to "so-called" duplicate ISBNs from their duplicate copies.

It would have been better for me if they had just deleted all the titles and let me resubmit.

[R. C.]

It's a big mess...

Yep. Months ago, I exchanged a long email thread with the D2D developer about this topic. Suffice it to say, after too many years leading software development and implementations teams, I gave up on the thread and the hope that the D2D/Smashwords library sync would work correctly. 

R.C.

[Lynn]

I'm not going to touch mine for a while and see how things shake out. I'd rather have two of the same book at different retailers than this mess. I'm sorry it's making things so difficult for you.

[cecilia_writer]

I don't think there is any overlap with my titles, so any delay could either be due to the sheer quantity of them or the two different author names. I'm within a week or so of releasing a new book so I will probably delay adding it to Smashwords at least until I can establish what's actually happening.

[alhawke]

Merger is working now!!! Try again if it didn't work before. I'm now merging all my remaining books.

Now I have to see if there's any way to salvage the five books I deleted.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Merger is working now!!!

Glad to hear it.   

[Lynn]

Thanks for the heads up!

[cecilia_writer]

I unexpectedly got to the point of publishing another book in my main series so I looked for a way to ask Smashwords whether I could still upload it there - it was quite tricky to find a way of contacting them but luckily they emailed me about their summer sale and I found a contact link in the email. Anyway, I got a reply very quickly saying I should upload to Smashwords. I assume that means my migration to D2D is nowhere near being carried out! Still, I was quite glad (for once) to be able to upload in the way I'm more used to.

[She-la-te-da]

I haven't heard of this before. I got my merger announcement months ago, and then later one that said it was complete. As far as I know, from looking at my D2D page, I have no duplicate books, everything is still set to go where it was going. I didn't have a lot on SW by this time, though. I never really got going over there, kept most of my stuff in KU or just on Amazon in general. Maybe I got lucky!