More problems with Draft2Digital

[CoraBuhlert]

Is anybody else having problems with Draft2Digital?

I uploaded a book to them on December 16 and it's still not live at Scribd and any tolino store, even though the books normally go live there within one or two days. Yesterday, I e-mailed them and got an unhelpful response regarding holiday processing times back. However, December 16 was well within the holiday processing time range for tolino and a book I published later went up at Scribd without a hitch, so that can't have been the problem either.

BTW, is it just me or has D2D's customer service become a lot less helpful of late? They used to be really great and quick to reply (and I'm not the sort of person who e-mails, if a book is two hours late to go live. Two weeks, however, is another matter), but in recent times, I've gotten canned replies that don't address the problem and once the response that an e-book file was rejected for reasons unknown - two weeks after I uploaded it.

[LilyBLily]

D2D recently had live chats; maybe they have diverted staff to that (largely pointless IMO) endeavor.

The only thing I've noticed checking just now is that several of my books are still shown as "publishing" to Hoopla from September of 2019. I'm not convinced there's any point publishing anything to Hoopla and maybe I will email D2D and ask them to remove all of my books from the "long processing time" of Hoopla.

[CoraBuhlert]

Yes, D2D always seem to be doing live chats. Which may be useful for some people, though I've never tuned in. But customer service which actually responds to questions rather than offer canned replies is more important than live chats.

Never mind that D2D has thoroughly messed up my promotion plans. Now my newsletter has to go out with half the buy links missing, because D2D hasn't got their act together.

Another issue I've had with D2D is with the library distributor bibliotheca. I used to do really well there - lots of sales distributed across several different titles. Then suddenly, the sales were only concentrated on two titles, one in German and one in English. Since neither title is a particularly good seller, it's extremely unlikely that only those two otherwise low-selling titles were selling at bibliotheca. Most likely, there was a reporting error. Then, a few months later, my bibliotheca sales stopped completely (and have no resumed in more than a year now). I contacted D2D about this and pointed out that both sales of only two titles out of more than a hundred and sales suddenly stopping dead after regular sales of 30 to 50 per month was extremely unlikely. The response I got back was that everything was okay.

I also hear you on the hoopla processing times. I honestly wonder, if anybody has ever sold anything there.

[notthatamanda]

I've done $3.59 with Hoopla this year. I did not put all my books on it yet, maybe two.

I'm sorry your promotions have gotten messed up, that's terrible.

[Maggie Ann]

Yes, D2D always seem to be doing live chats. Which may be useful for some people, though I've never tuned in. But customer service which actually responds to questions rather than offer canned replies is more important than live chats.

Never mind that D2D has thoroughly messed up my promotion plans. Now my newsletter has to go out with half the buy links missing, because D2D hasn't got their act together.

Another issue I've had with D2D is with the library distributor bibliotheca. I used to do really well there - lots of sales distributed across several different titles. Then suddenly, the sales were only concentrated on two titles, one in German and one in English. Since neither title is a particularly good seller, it's extremely unlikely that only those two otherwise low-selling titles were selling at bibliotheca. Most likely, there was a reporting error. Then, a few months later, my bibliotheca sales stopped completely (and have no resumed in more than a year now). I contacted D2D about this and pointed out that both sales of only two titles out of more than a hundred and sales suddenly stopping dead after regular sales of 30 to 50 per month was extremely unlikely. The response I got back was that everything was okay.

I also hear you on the hoopla processing times. I honestly wonder, if anybody has ever sold anything there.

I've had 13 sales at Hoopla over the past couple of months. Astonishing!

[Eric Thomson]

I also hear you on the hoopla processing times. I honestly wonder, if anybody has ever sold anything there.

I've made a few hundred bucks off Hoopla this year, but my last five books - all published in the last 14 months - aren't live there yet.

[alhawke]

I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for Hoopla. Partly it's probably because I pulled my books, then heard from you guys that they actually sell books, and then added them again to publish. Guess I have to wait a year.

I have seen more delays this month than usual with d2d.

[CoraBuhlert]

I got another extremely unhelpful e-mail from D2D. Basically, they said, "We don't care about the processing time of the vendors we mentioned in our own e-mail., we said the holiday deadline was December 11, so screw you." Then they proceeded to explain to me what tolino is. I have a tolino and I know how they operate.

Meanwhile, they also sent everybody a sappy holiday message. Maybe, they should do their job rather than send sappy messages.

Anyway, I'm so angry that if one of their live chats is at a convenient time for me, I might just attend and ask some pointed questions.