We have some...news. Mostly good news, luckily, about Kobo. (And some about D2D!)
Kobo
We are pleased to inform you that the we have successfully added the data verification software to Kobo. Like it did with Amazon and Google, this feature will verify that the download from Kobo is accurate before allowing it to be posted to your dashboard.
However, there is one issue we were unable to conquer: free books.
Kobo does not report historical data on free books. It will show them in the total numbers on the dashboard, and then only if the author choses to do so via a button. As soon as the month is over, poof! Gone.
As a result, ScribeCount's Free Books chart will not, for now, be displaying historical free units from Kobo. We will, however, be reaching out to Kobo to find the best solution for this issue. Stay tuned!
D2D
D2D is next in line for the verification code. There are some unique issues, as D2D gets different data from each of the places to which it distributes.. We are working with them to create a solution that will address many of these issues, and are very grateful to be tackling that together.
In the short term, however, you'll see some interesting things. A good example would be Apple.
Apple sales via D2D do not show as a daily report. Instead, they show up in one large spike in sales at the end of every month. This is due to how Apple gives information to D2D, and resolving that requires not only technical skill, but also discussions between multiple companies.
We'll be working to provide both short-term and long-term solutions, and are incredibly grateful to D2D for working with us on this!
Apple and B&N
These two are on the list after D2D. We're going in descending order of support tickets, and we've had very few reports of data accuracy issues from either of them. We haven't yet seen the types of problems that require verification software, but we still intend to deploy the verification software to those platforms. We'd rather have a more robust system, all things being equal!
Other Features and Platforms
Smashwords? Ad Tracking? All the other requests?
We haven't forgotten, don't worry! We have a giant list and will be getting to them soon.
A Request
ScribeCount is enjoying a nice start and much of that is due to authors giving back with their patience, their time, and a mountain of great feedback. We really appreciate it and want to make our service grow. We want to get those requested features to you as soon as possible.
To do so requires additional developers. Simply put, the more of them we have, the faster the new features can come out. For that we need the support of more subscribers. If you could take a moment to share the link below to any and every author friend, FaceBook Group, Writers Group, or Author Chatroom you may know of or belong to, it would get us all that much closer to our common goal.
www.scribecount.com
Thanks for everything, we'll be back soon with another update.
Randall
