Smashwords Premium Catalog Question

You'll need to do Amazon separately, as Amazon don't take automated additions. Smashwords does it manually for a few big sellers I believe, but really you're better off doing that one on your own anyway.

On the rest, the quickest for me was within a few hours. Most sites had updated with the book in a few days. A few popped up weeks later. That's down to each individual retailer. Apple is often a bit slow, but they get there. Kobo was the worst for me, as they didn't always update... to the point I no longer distribute there. If I start selling more and people want Kobo, I'll likely try to do it directly, as at least then I can complain directly when they mess up (which they just kept on doing).

NateSean said:

My book just got approved for premium status. How long did it take for you to see your book on Amazon, BnN, and the other retailers Smashwords distributes to?

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For Flipkart (the only reason I used Smashwords), never. After 3 months, I gave up. D2D is much, much more responsive.

NateSean said:

I felt really smart when I figured out their formatting guidelines and I made the changes they asked for. But now I'm seeing "reshipped" this and "Already shipped" that, so I guess I'm not sure where the line is between being patient and throwing in the towel.

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I assume you're talking about the channel manager. Numbers under "Already shipped" means they've sent that many of your titles to those places (if you have the one book, it should say 1). "To be (re)shipped" means shipment is pending (both of new titles and updates). Once it's been shipped, most places that are going to list it will likely have done so in a week. This will obviously only happen once you have "approved" under Premium Status on your dashboard.

Some places will chose not to list a book. A number of the channels don't take short stories, for example. They may be pickier about certain genres (like erotica). The retailer is the one who makes the final decision, not Smashwords.

I took your original post as general curiosity, but it sounds like there might be a particular retailer you're waiting on?

Yay! Do make sure you get the book on Amazon too (which as I said, you need to do directly). You'll likely get more sales on Amazon than all the rest combined.

NateSean said:

Someone mentioned D2D in another thread, but someone else said they were comprehensive. Do you exclusively use D2D now?

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I put most of my books back into Select, but I do use D2D for a permafree short story. I always recommend D2D over SW, unless there's a compelling reason to use SW--like a channel that D2D doesn't offer. As it turned out for me, that didn't matter in the end.