Writing and Smashwords

Let's start with a little writing update. I believe I'm nearing the end of Human and I hope I'll be sending it out very soon to my beta readers. Since I never know the exact date when I'll be doing something (yeah, I'm horrible, I know), it's a bit difficult to find friends who have time to proofread it for me. But I'll find a way to solve that, even if publishing of Human gets postponed a week or two. The cover is done and I would really like to show it to you, so I guess I'll be doing that as soon as I finish writing and come up with a blurb. I really hate writing blurbs because I'm never sure how much I'm supposed to reveal about the plot and characters. As for Runaway (Element Preservers series, book 2), I will start writing it as soon as I finish Human.

      Now something for authors: my Smashwords experiment. So, how long does it really take to change price everywhere? As I mentioned in my last post, I changed the price of my book on 27 September. My Distribution Channel Manager on my Smashword's Dashboard says they sent the update to Sony (2011-10-07), Barnes & Noble (2011-10-08), Apple (2011-10-02), Diesel (2011-10-08) and Scrollmotion (2011-10-08). Kobo is still backlogged and my book hasn't appeared there yet at all, so I can't tell anything about that. But, I do see that the updates were sent mostly during weekend, so I guess you should have that in mind when you change your price.

      Let's get to the part when the changes actually took place. Apple was the fastest, as usual, and the new price was there two days after Smashwords sent the info to them (2011-10-04), Barnes & Nobel and Sony took a few days more, but not too long (both 2011-10-11). I'm still waiting for Diesel, but nothing is happening. It seems like they are the slowest. I actually found posts from other authors saying Diesel was the slowest for them too. As for Scrollmotion, I have no idea. I don't even know how they work. But, even though Sony updated my new price, my overview is still nonexistent, and B&N still hasn't categorized my book, which basically means it's lost on their page. Anyway, if you plan to change the price or promote your book, it might take some time to get everything done, which means 'limited time only' kind of thing could be difficult because some retailers will be late and then you'll have your book priced, for example, 1.99$ on B&N and 2.99$ on Diesel. Now I'm tempted to change my price again just to see will it take the same amount of time, but I won't. I'll try that some other time. :P