Premium Distribution, Experience

c2011 (S)


I just confirmed that 'The Stud Farm,' available as a free download for a limited time on Smashwords has been approved for premium distribution. Because I have a separate account with Amazon, what this means is that my e-book, (actually a short story of 8,000 words,) will enter the premium distribution network. This includes Apple iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Indigo/Chapters, Sony Reader Store, Scrollmotion, Kobo, etc.

I am also on Lulu.com with a POD of 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' I'm on Google Books, where people can read online for free, and last night I enabled Google E-Books, although I still haven't uploaded Epub versions yet. In Amazon, (or on Amazon,) I have three distribution channels, which include US, UK and DE, the last being Germany.

I was in Borders US and AU, but recently heard they have dropped e-books altogether.

As far as 'The Stud Farm' is concerned, I nailed the formatting on the first shot, and that process is called 'the meatgrinder' when you crack open the free pdf formatting guide from Smashwords for the first time.

***

So last week I found that a site called 'Bookchums' had apparently taken a free copy of 'Stud Farm' and put it on their site for free downloads. I missed a kind of opportunity here.

Basically, I sent them three e-mails through the contact form, and they seemed to go through. No response. The next three times I tried, the contact form was jiggered, and it did not work at all.

A couple of days later, I signed up for the site as a member, but returning e-mails to the administrator 'bounced.' At that point, I went into a discussion where there seemed to be a fair number of recent comments, and pointed out that my book was copyrighted material. I can't bring up that page on search, and maybe it's gone now.

The problem is, I prefer not to get into it at all, and telling someone this is 'theft' and 'book piracy' probably wasn't pleasant for them, and it wasn't that great for me either.

The thing to do is to go into a popular comment stream and simply point out that your copyrighted work is available for free as a download on Smashwords. I was giving the thing away for free myself, after all, but as part of a plan. I need some control over it! I like to know what is happening...

The trouble of course would be when I go to set a price on it, and then someone is using my own work to compete against me. Also, that site had a counter, and at one point it read '104.' I have no way of verifying or proving that number now.

This is all due to inexperience on my part, and of course if it happens again, I will definitely handle it a little differently.