On Monday, I received an email response from Smashwords regarding the fact that three of my books were placed on sale at Sony even though they had been unpublished in late 2011. The email indicated that Smashwords “cannot guarantee that errors will never occur as the take-down itself is in the retailer’s hands.” This would be a reasonable response if MONTHS had not passed between my taking them off sale and the retailer selling them again. In addition, this was the second time it had happened, and different retailers were involved both times. And there was no apology for my inconvenience, by the way.
As I said, I wasn’t expecting them to send flowers, but I have always appreciated their customer service in the past, so I was expecting something more than being told that accidents happen.
I had planned to delete my account, but I’ll give them one more strike before taking my business elsewhere.
One thought on “Smashwords Responded”
Basically what they’re saying is once you put your book through their meat grinder and it’s accepted into the premium distribution plan, they have no control over where it gets sold. That’s a completely unsatisfactory answer, and makes me very glad that HGO never went into distribution.
I’m planning to re-upload my new file to them in June when my Select subscription ends, but I will not put it through the extended distribution. There are some stores (the Kobo store, for instance) that don’t have a self-publishing portal yet, so I need the basic Smashwords store to have any way of reaching those readers. Once that need is gone, my relationship with them will end.
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