Ingram is ready.
No, really!
This was a battle of epic proportions. If you are familiar with Ingram’s reporting, you’ll already have an idea of the complexity, and…rigidness, of their system. The fact that we were able to do this at all has me shaking my head. The research and development phase for Ingram was several months. In case it’s not clear, I’m extremely proud of our Development Team today. 😊
Anyway, let’s get into it.
To access Ingram you’ll first need to update the Browser Extension to version
1.5.2.2
Instructions on how to do this are on the Browser Extension tab of the Settings page.
Once you have the extension updated you connect to Ingram just as you would to any of the other platforms.
First, travel to the Platforms tab of the Settings page and Enable Ingram via the slider button next to the logo.
Once you’ve done that you’ll need to login the same as you do the other platforms.
The data may take a while to load the first time, especially if you have a large library or have been listed there for a few years. Please be patient and let it spin until you get the green checkmark.
After the initial data load, ScribeCount will update your Ingram data every 30 minutes. Ingram will appear in blue in the Sunburst, same as in their logo.
There is one piece of data that Ingram DOES NOT provide us.
Covers.
In the Bookshelf your books will appear without covers. We’re still looking for a solution for this but until we do you can utilize the Edit Cover tool on your books detail page.
If you merge your Ingram books with the books on the other platforms the cover will then show.
There were a few unique items we needed to work around. One example is that Ingram has different classifications than what we Indies usually use. Formats are called something different. Terms like “Case Laminate” and “Perfect Bound” are what they use for formats.
We had to interpret them into the standard “Paperback” and “Hardcover” that Indies use in order to match the other platforms. If you have two sizes of the same book, we’re working on a way to separate them without the charts getting too cluttered.
On the plus side, their Country Breakdown is great. Books sold through Ingram will appear in both the Sunburst and the Map in every country.
I feel the need for a disclaimer here. Ingram is firmly in BETA right now and will be until we have found and worked out any bugs that crop up.
Due to its complexity, we anticipate a few bugs, so please be patient while we address them.
To do that, we’ll need your help. If you have an issue, no matter how small, please send us a ticket.
Comments are great, but tickets link to your accounts, so it’s much easier to find the issue if you tell us about it that way.
I’ve asked for this in the past and everyone has been great about helping us debug the new features. It’s great to have such a group of early adopters who are part of the development process, it’s like we have our own spy network on the lookout for issues. With well over a million lines of code it’s incredibly helpful. Every ticket gets us one step closer to what we all want.
Speaking of tickets, I know we’ve gotten behind on them lately, so it probably sounds stupid to ask for more, and under normal circumstances, you would be right. Since we compartmentalize development here at ScribeCount the people who were busy building the Ingram feature are now available to troubleshoot it. So please, fire away. User feedback is the best way to identify issues and get them solved quickly.
That’s what it’ll take to solidify the core features you all want. Once we have them in place we intend to do nothing but User Interface Improvements and Ticket Solutions. We’ve recently hired an additional person to do nothing but customer service. They should be fully trained and ready to tackle any issue in a couple of weeks. We have all of September and October set aside for this, so we need you to hang in there for a few more weeks.
Plus, we now have Elizabeth Ann West, who has hit the ground running. She’s making us a slew of videos related to everything ScribeCount. You’ll all be seeing a lot more of her very soon.
What’s next?
Next on the list is Amazon Ads. This should arrive in the next couple weeks and be similar to the FaceBook Ads feature. You’ll be able to see both in the same chart for comparison purposes or one at a time via the filters. All the related info will be present. If you see it at Amazon you will see it at ScribeCount. Early results are looking very good, so I’m excited to get that added to the ScribeCount system.
And that’s it. Happy Wednesday and welcome IngramSpark data to the ScribeCount sunburst!
- Randall and Elizabeth