Pseudonym Adventures - Continued

[jessicasteiner]

So I know I said I wouldn't be mentioning this again, but I learned a few things on this first foray into the world of pen names. I thought people could benefit from it.

Yesterday I uploaded my story to all three of my distributors - Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords.

Both Amazon and Kobo weren't a problem at all. They have a place for putting in the author's name, and my two books are now sitting on my respective dashboards, separated out by author name, but otherwise fully integrated.

Smashwords doesn't have a field for this. When I uploaded the file, it popped up under my real name and I couldn't find any way to change it. This is... a problem.

I've emailed them to ask for help and I'm still waiting to hear back. I'll let you guys know how that goes.

I figure if they simply don't support multiple author names, I'll have to create a separate account. The problem there, is that it will add yet another place where sales are accumulating, and further delay my payday. Furthermore, it increases the number of places I need to log in to check my sales and such. It's annoying, but not insurmountable.

I'm out of town for the long weekend. On Monday I'll tell you how I accidentally attributed my gay erotic vampire story to an author who writes about the Amish.

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

Yeah, Smashwords is frustrating that way :\ I had uploaded two books, IIRC, before I realized that they had my name in as "Clare Miller" instead of "Clare K. R. Miller." I changed it on my account, since that was the only way, but then the books had to be resubmitted to the premium catalog and one of them never made it to Apple again as far as I can tell. I've since started distributing to Apple through Draft2Digital, which is much less frustrating. I recommend D2D for iBooks and B&N (since you obviously go direct to Kobo and Amazon). The only downside is that only via Smashwords can one make a book free on B&N.

I know it is possible to make your account on SW into a publisher account that can publish multiple pen names, though it's not clear how one does that from what I read.

[jessicasteiner]

Wow, that sounds frustrating! I had the hardest time figuring out how to even find books on the iTunes store, and it took forever for Mortis to show up on B&N, but I strongly suspect that was a B&N problem, not a Smashwords problem.

I haven't heard of D2D before. Do they distribute to Sony and libraries and all that as well?

I actually got a response last night from Smashwords telling me about the publisher account, and I've been making those changes this morning. I had to upgrade my account, and I have to migrate my two author names into "ghost" accounts, and change my base username. The last step is something I have to request they do, but it was pretty easy to set up the ghost accounts. I have a publisher name that I was sort of using anyway, which isn't my name. I now have the short story set up, showing as being published by the publisher and with the right author name. Once my username gets changed then Mortis will be updated with the right information (by Jessica Steiner and published by Noda Publishing) and it doesn't seem like I have to republish them, though they do have to be reapproved for premium status.

Overall, it seems I've found a solution. Especially since it'll allow me to publish my wife's books under the same account if she ends up wanting to do that, as well.

[clare_dragonfly]

D2D only distributes to Apple, Kobo, B&N, and Amazon so far, unfortunately. They wouldn't be replacing Smashwords for me fully anyway, because I actually sell books on the Smashwords site. I know they're working on wider distribution, though--it's still in beta, though it's an open beta now.

I'm glad you managed things with the publisher account!

[jessicasteiner]

Yeah, I sell them on the smashwords site, too. I'll keep an eye on them, but at this point I feel like it's going to work out and there's no particular need to switch to a new site.