My company competes against BookBaby.com. So, you’d think that when I read a blog post trashing it, I’d be jumping for joy. I would be, except the article is so unfair and so irresponsible, that I needed to come to BookBaby’s defense. The article in question is Beware of Ebook Distribution Promises on The Indie Times. The post written by author Phyllis Zimbler Miller complains about how BookBaby failed to get her ebook listed on Copia.com (an ebook distributor /bookstore) despite stating on its website that its books are sold on Copia.
Two months after BookBaby submitted her book to Copia.com, it still wasn’t listed for sale, despite BookBaby’s initial email to her giving an approximate time frame of 30 days. So, is BookBaby a liar? Probably, not in this case. There are ebook resale channels popping up all of the time.
My ebook division, PublishGreen, distributes ebooks through 34 resale channels (including Copia, starting June 1). A lot of these companies can’t their sh*t together fast or well enough to get books up within the time frames they give publishers.
BookBaby’s response to Ms. Miller was totally reasonable. Bookbaby stated, “Copia’s current development effort is delaying our books from going live. They haven’t given us a timeframe for a remedy.” That means, “Sorry, Copia doesn’t have their sh*t together. When they do, we’ll get your book listed.”
Ms. Miller, if you really want to trash a company online, at least trash it for something it can control. Shoot the perp not the messenger.
