D2D Smashwords merge cleanup

[Lynn]

I'm finally getting around to cleaning up the books that got merged from Smashwords into my D2D account. Publisher info is wrong, and I have a bunch of duplicate books and series.

If you've done any clean up of this kind of mess, mind telling me what order it is best to use the tools D2D has for it?

I'm not sure if I should use the publisher merge tool, series merge tool, contributor merge tool, or book merge tool first. I feel like there's probably an optimal way to go about it, but just randomly picking one and trying for myself makes me feel like I'm about to spin a roulette wheel.

Advice appreciated!

(Oh, and if you did this, did you notice any negative aftereffects with the retailers? That's a worry, too!)

[djmills]

I had a look when my books were "merged" on D2D.
I have decided to leave it well alone for now, as the ISBN numbers seem to be still working for individual distributer sites.
But interested to hear how you solved your merge, so I can do the same later.

[Lynn]

I decided to try first on a pen name that only has a few books that D2D brought over from Smashwords first a while back.

I started with the Publisher merge. It didn't have any need for additional merging. It will someday if they ever finish the User merge tool, but it's done for now.

Now I have to decide if I want to start on my main pen name.

Haven't decided yet since I haven't yet talked to anyone who has done the merging.

But I'm going to go in order of Publisher merge, Contributor merge, then Series merge. If all goes well, I'll tackle Book merge.

It's waiting until very last and I might not even do it. I haven't decided.

[alhawke]

I used their software first. It was a complete mess with duplication of nearly all books. The only way to fix was to contact them direct. But when I contacted them direct, they fixed it. So I'd use the merge buttons and then contact customer service for any issues.

Just don't get impatient, like I did, and start deleting books and republishing. I did that and now I have the mess of some of my links going to dead unpublished books.

So I'd merge your names, which I did as well, with the merge button. Then I'd press the merger for all the books. And then, when it doesn't work out right  , contact customer service to fix the merging.

[Lynn]

Thanks, alhawke. I remember you mentioning this mess. It's one reason I hesitated to jump right in.

I've taken it slow. First night I did Publisher merge, then tonight I did Contributor merge, Contributor profile merge, and Series merge.

I'll give it a day and go back for Book merge tomorrow or the day after when I feel brave. :D

The other merges seem to have worked okay. At least the drop downs aren't full of duplicate entries now. I chose to always merge into the one with the most books.

[cecilia_writer]

I am still waiting for any word of a migration. I don't actually mind too much for now as Smashwords are still paying me, and at the moment I'm recovering from open-heart surgery so I don't want to deal with anything unusual! I just hope they haven't forgotten all about it.

[Jeff Tanyard]

...at the moment I'm recovering from open-heart surgery...

Wow.  Hope everything went okay and you make a full recovery.   

[Lynn]

I am still waiting for any word of a migration. I don't actually mind too much for now as Smashwords are still paying me, and at the moment I'm recovering from open-heart surgery so I don't want to deal with anything unusual! I just hope they haven't forgotten all about it.

Wow. I do hope you recover quickly!

My last migration went well, for the most part. I think they've worked out a lot of the bugs. Going last isn't a bad thing in this case. Good luck with it.

[djmills]

I also hope you have a quick recovery back to full health.

[cecilia_writer]

Thank you very much indeed for the good wishes.- it all helps! I've had some good days and bad days, the bad ones mostly because of lung complications, but I was fit enough to go to a family triple birthday party yesterday -  sister-in-law's 70th, son's 40th and grandson's 7th within days of each other - the 3-way cake was exceptional!

Sorry, have gone off-topic and almost forgotten what I came here for, which is that I've just this minute had the email to say my books have been migrated. I had better leave doing anything until the morning as it's now mid-evening here! But I am pleased at this point that something has happened at last.

[djmills]

I tried merging by following D2D process suggestions, and I got the first few steps done.
Then to the individual titles where I have the print and Amazon ebook on D2D and all other ebook distributors were Smashwords.
The short story ebooks without print on D2D merged well with Smashrwords ebooks, retaining the Smashwords ISBN.
However, the first novel title with a print copy on D2D gave me errors, as the second and third. So I stopped and emailed  D2D.
The end result is the print pdf covers gave PDF/X-1a (2001) Font not embedded errors. Which were complied for PDF 4 when exported out of Scribus. And had POD sales for ages.
I questioned D2D if the PDFs had to now be PDF/X-1a compliant. The return email advised to ignore the error messages and just remove the RRP on the back cover page.

Has anyone else been advised to remove the RRP from the publisher area of the print back covers?