Scribd One Month Later : 57 Uploads – Problems Fixes and Expectations

Scribd One Month Later : 57 Uploads – Problems Fixes and Expectations

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Pictured Left :

“Dirty Sixth Street, Austin“

Short light crime mystery, set in Austin Texas.

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My Scribd Author’s Page

My Author Pages at major online outlets

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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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Fitness ** Arts ** eBooks

Scribd One Month Later : 57 Uploads

Problems Fixes and Expectations

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Categories : Author Bio Info & Updates – Scribd

Previous Related Articles :

Why I’m Uploading 50 Plus Titles to Scribd & Oyster

First Impression re Scribd & Oyster – I Like It!  And Why…

Update: First Impression re Scribd & Oyster – I Like It!  And Why…

Question Mark @ the Intersections of Pre-Orders and Scribd Oyster etc

First Impression of My First 15 (of 56) Titles on Scribd – Discoverability

Update: My First 56 Titles on Scribd – Four Previews : Austin Paris Nursing Gratitude

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Intro

About a month ago, my then total of 56 titles of fiction, poetry, and imagery, were all posted and fully available on Scribd via Smashwords.

I had been posting advance posts about my preparations and expectations, plus preparing blog posts and some light advertising, including a paid press release.

I was beginning seasonal full time temp work in a few weeks, and I pushed rapidly ahead to have everything in place to take advantage of the timing of the uploads with SXSW among other things.

High Expectations

Needless to say, my expectations and hopes were high.  Very high.

In my defense, and continuing belief though, realistically high.

Top of my list of expectations, was a radical increase in visibility and discover-ability (please see link above).

And initially, it was all so.

Unexpected Problems

Then a slew of unexpected problems appeared.

Effects of which I am just now beginning to fully fix.

Thanks fully to the aid and assistance of the support staff at Scribd.

The Story

What follows is the story of the past month.  Recovering from a (for me) significant derailment that could have gone much worse.

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Dirty Sixth Street, Austin

“Dirty Sixth Street, Austin” has, in my mind, become the symbol of what went wrong, and what was made right again.

Some of the following problems should not occur again.  Or should be easily correctable.  I think.

But if you are an author, you may want to at least be aware of what happened, and be prepared.

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Preview :

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The Problem

While I was happily adding not only links to previous posts to choice selections of books now on Scribd, like Paris Shorts Vol 1 – Slumming in Paris Part One – Everyday Gratitude, and even placing strategically embedded previews of the books in those posts (courtesy of Scribd’s embedding links), the anti piracy mechanism being employed automatically removed a number of my titles.

The links in dozens of my posts to selected books were not only gone, but a notice that The Publisher had removed them was added.

The embedded links for removed books now said Deleted.

My press release now referred to books any searchers might be looking for as not available.

This included “Dirty Sixth Street, Austin.”  During SXSW.

Worsening the problem was a significant campaign on Twitter and Facebook coordinating the music event’s happening, to my Texas stories, including of course “Dirty Sixth Street, Austin.”

Further worsening the problem was that I had posted a special free post on Scribd, another of their perks I whole-heartedly recommend, Going to SXSW in Our 60s, which pointed to “Dirty Sixth Street, Austin,” and was gaining momentum.

Actually both the free post and the short story (via subscription) were, as per the currently available stats (said to be improved upon even more in the near future) gaining jumps in visibility, ie, views.

I added fuel to the fire, not knowing the links were about to break or were being broken by the removal of the selected subscription titles, by advertising via Stumbleupon’s ad services, which appeared to be doing their job really well.

Momentum.  Visibility.  Discoverability.

I felt a wave was lifting me into sight of shore.

I started my full-time temp work, happy with my concerted efforts: creative and marketing.

A few days later I checked, expecting to possibly see a plateauing of my efforts, and found that over a dozen titles were no longer available.

Removed by publisher.  Deleted.  Not searchable.

A long exhaustive after-work, before-work, at-lunch inquiry into what had happened began.

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The Cause

Basically, the automatic system had mis-identified many of my titles as being possible copies or infringing on my copyrighted work from Smashwords.

But it was my own work.

Digital Reader has an excellent article, detailing better than I can, what went wrong.  And evidently, it’s not a Scribd or Smashwords specific problem, even if it did specifically affect me 😉

Adding to the problem, was when a book was removed, and subsequently replaced, the url to that book also changed.  I am, hopefully, in the final stages of replacing the last of the links and embedded links in my posts to my work on Scribd.

That problem, of a title not retaining its original url on re-instatement, has now been corrected by Scribd.  Any future titles I may have inadvertently removed then replaced, should retain links I’ve placed to them within my articles and posts.

This engineering solution was a speedy prompt response from the team at Scribd.

Urls, I believe, are now static to a title.

There is a Smashwords specific email when requesting support from Scribd.

First hand, I can say Scribd’s support has been indispensable.

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Preview :

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The Scribd Author Support System

I honestly do not believe I would have stayed with either Scribd or Smashwords without the dogged persistence and determination of the folk at Scribd I’ve been in almost daily communication with.

Because of the folk at Scribd, I remain in their subscription program, can recommend it fully (while cautioning a prospective author to be aware of these possibilities), and have regained my optimism that my decision to be part of their program is a good one.

Scribd’s future promise is significant.

Their expectations on their own press release, are my expectations.

So for all other authors out there, I wish you all the best.

Now, I need to get back to work, my creative work.

Thanks so much 🙂

Sincerely,

Adan

namaste´- con dios – god be with you

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