Ignore this post

No really, ignore it. I'm just writing it because I need to write something. Anything.

My teeth hurt. Left side molars, up and down. The kidney stone(s) chime in occasionally, like a Greek chorus of pain. The pain medication is 1) not terribly effective and 2) makes me feel like I have a fever coming on. In addition, I've got a fever coming on.

Money. I have none. I've been here before, I'll most liekly be here again, but it never gets any easier. And I've got bills to pay and obligations to attend to that require money. Not to mention a few medical things that require money that i do not have. It's never far from my thoughts, a low-grade anxiety that just doesn't let up.

I need a haircut. Also, I now have, suddenly, gray hair. Less suddenly, a paunch.

And I can't write.

Draft 2 Digital vs Smashwords: No contest

So I've been testing out Draft 2 Digital, and can honestly say that up to this point it blows Smashwords away in three very important areas: Ease of use, reporting, and customer service.

Ease of use: You don't need to know how to do anything except make a word document. You send it to them, and it will automatically be formatted. You choose what sorts of extra material you want- dedication, teaser pages, etc- and these are generated for you. All this vs Smashwords' meatgrinder.

Reporting: Smashwords' philosophy seems to be you'll get what we decide to give you, when we decide to give it to you (if we decide to give it to you).

D2D is radically different. Near-real time reporting for every title at every outlet, be it publishing or sales, paid or free. This difference alone absolutely crushes Smashwords, and shows just how pathetic their reporting 'ability' really is.

Customer service: Smashwords' Mark Coker has made a big deal about adding staff to his customer support, and has absolutely ignored the fact that (At least for me and according to others' anecdotal experiences) just because your customer service request is responded to faster, doesn't mean your problem is actually resolved faster- or at all. Smashwords' customer service is essentially kabuki theater for every issue I've ever brought to them. I've stopped trying.

D2D on the other hand a) actually responds more quickly than Smashwords, b) demonstrates that they actually understand what the problem is, and c)either does something about it or tells you they can't, and why, and what you should try instead.

As the volume of users increase, will D2D be able to maintain this level of service? I fervently hope so. But the truth is, no matter what happens, they can't get any worse than Smashwords. They just had to show up to win this race.

This only leaves one question in deciding whether to dump Smashwords completely, but it's a big one: Gettin' paid. The fact is, I have never had a problem getting my money from Smashwords, while D2D is still a cypher. But I can't imagine putting in the kind of work that obviously went into making D2D such a winner, only to fall down when it comes to the one thing people will have no patience for if you screw it up.

In my opinion, Smashwords is toast unless they do a lot of soul-searching. Given my experiences over the last 18 months or so, I don't really see that happening.