Amazon Just Got Dumped, and Why

I’m not going to pretend I’m doing the right thing overall, but it is the right thing

for me. What I’m talking about is, walking away from Amazon.com.

It’s one thing to sell books, but it’s another when you can’t trust, at all, the
distributor handling those sales to keep an accurate count, or to tell you the truth
on what was sold, how many people borrowed your books, and how many pages
were read, which is how us authors are paid when a book is borrowed. By the
page. $00.0046 per page per average.

It is a rather long story, and you can read all about it here.

You don’t have to join the Kindle Boards to read, the forums are public, but to post you
have to join (fake name if you so choose), and it takes a good while of reading to
get the full picture of what me and thousands of authors just like me are facing,
but the story is worth the time.

In order for me to counter this, to effectively take myself out of the picture, to
actually give me a fighting chance with my 16 e-books with the reading public,
and to get paid for all my hard work, I pulled all my books from Amazon.com.

It will take some time to get back up and on with other online vendors, but I can
wait. In the meantime I’m back with Smashwords.com (I can be bought right now,
today, with better prices, there.), who will then distribute me to all the online
stores around the world, including the Apple iBooks store, and Barnes & Noble.
There is another distributor for the Google Play store I’ll be using.

You might want to call it a glitch in Amazon’s reporting system, but I’ve been flat-
lined since I decided to give the (exclusive to and with Amazon) KU 2.0 program
a chance. And, I’m not joking.

Only thing is, I’ve been selling books, I have had borrows, and only discovered
through the thread link above, why I’ve been flat-lined. Oh, to be fair, I did show
some movement when Amazon adjusted things for everybody, and then I flat-lined
again.

That movement, their adjustment, was their mistake. It gave me a glimpse of the
truth.

They proved to me I had sales, and I had page reads, and nothing before or after
their adjustment (for all authors) had shown up on my sales and read reports. I did
get that one page glitch thing associated with Pageflip.

It hard enough to make it as a writer of genre fiction, without wading waist deep in
someone else’s doodoo.

You can still read samples of each book at the Smashwords.com store (links are up
on the books page, too), and soon to come, everywhere else. You can make up your
own mind as to purchase the book and see how the story ends.

In the meantime, I got another book to post, another to finish, more picks to get
up, and changes to make to my links. My online footprint.

I’m disappointed, more than anything else. All I wanted was a fair chance.

I do see authors like me, those with nothing to lose and everything to gain,
following in my footsteps.

It takes time to gain ground, to get your books in front of potential readers, make
no mistake about that, but going wide (again) will be worth it in the long run. I’ll
blog about this again in the near future. What steps I’m taking to introduce myself
to new readers.

Getting Up To Speed

No it's not easy. One of the hardest things to do is get back up and running the way you want, after a medical crisis. Hopefully you won't have to.

On the upside, this week will be a busy one. I've got a lot of work to do on Rip's Picks with monetizing me, two post up on that subject, with a third post to write.

I'll just have to work on my two books, Baby Makes Three, and the currently being revamped Warrior, when I can, with luck a page a day or more on each.

Become a follower here, and over at Wattpad. I need a little motivation. It's a money vs maybe money thing. I tend to pay more attention to the sure thing, with the maybe thing taking a back seat. I'm nothing if not realistic.

Medications, and How They Can . . .

With age comes wisdom, an extra layer of fat you wish would go away, the
occasional bout of constipation, and medications to screw with one’s head. I went
off my old diuretic, separate of my high blood pressure pill, and off my high blood
pressure pill, in favor of just one pill. One pill to do the work of two pills, without
either ingredient screwing with my potassium level.

Today is day four with my new medication, and I managed one full page this last
week on Baby Makes Three, and two blog posts over at Rip’s Picks. This is my
third blog post.

I’m not making any excuses, but telling you like it is. Life can and does get in the
way.

Right now, my books are taking a back seat to what life for me is. I can’t
effectively concentrate, and I still need to get more products up over at Rip’s
Picks, the one place that makes all of this possible. I did take most of yesterday
off, and loved it.

Physically, I’m just now getting back into my exercise routine. It’s like starting
over, in some respects. Twenty-five reps of everything, instead of a hundred reps.
It takes time to get up to speed.

I’ll post again in a few days.

In the meantime, become a follower, sign up for my Rip’s Picks newsletter, show
your appreciation and buy me a cup of coffee, read my story on Wattpad, vote,
leave a comment, or just buy a book. Read me for free (15 of my books, out of 16
published) through your KindleUnlimited subscription.

Here’s How I See It

You can do things like everybody else, but that guarantees not one fucking thing.
Or, you can do things your own damn way.

Life is too short to continuously pound your head against any wall for too long,
and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Instead of following the crowds, I write the books I want to read, and I like them. I
have original ideas, not three pages go by without some action or a revelation, and
I don’t find myself boring. Reviews, real reader reviews, when I get them, say I’m
doing a great job. Real reader reviews are also freaking hard to get, yet my ratio is
still one out of ten readers leaves a review. Damn good, considering.

The only problem I’ve discovered to date is, I can’t pay to play. I don’t have the
marketing dollars. Even if I had the cash, I couldn’t get in the biggest book-
marketing newsletters because of my lack of reviews. That translates into: I don’t
exist.

Top sellers spend an average of $1500 each and every month to stay at the top of
the charts, and that’s what I live on for two months, and that’s not counting my
food stamps.

My money can do more for me in other ways. Why spend it on book marketing
that does little or nothing? There are other ways of telling people you exist.

That’s the direction I’m going. I want to be where ordinary people are. What I can
do for myself to find these ordinary readers.

I like what I’m doing now. I stopped worrying about the pay-to-play world of
book marketing. I don’t offer freebies. I don’t do anything like I’m supposed to,
and I sold more books in the last week than I did in the last six months.

So, I’m going to continue with being me. Chapter nine of Baby Makes Three
needs to be completed, and it will take a few days. It might take a week. That’s
right, five pages might take a week, but I’ll know they’re good pages.

Warrior, I’ve decided to keep going with that book, however, I’m going to do it in
the second person Point Of View, past tense. You, instead of I (first person POV),
or he or she (third person POV). I can get darker that way.

That’s it.

In the meantime, become a follower, sign up for my Rip’s Picks newsletter, show
your appreciation and buy me a cup of coffee, read my story on Wattpad, vote,
leave a comment, or just buy a book. Read me for free (15 of my books out of 16
published) through your KindleUnlimited subscription.
 

And . . .

. . . I made a new blog for store, showcased the products, provided active links,
and it took some time. Most of that time was deciding on what and how. I decided
to fight. I can’t give up. I can’t feel sorry for myself, either. I’m too damn old for
that. Bullies have to knocked down, again and again, if that’s what it takes.

I still have to run through my checklist, see what I missed, what else I need to do,
and keep on, keeping on.

In the meantime, become a follower, show your appreciation and buy me a cup of
coffee, read my story on Wattpad, vote, leave a comment, or just buy a book. Read
me for free through your KindleUnlimited subscription.

Once Again . . .

. . . I found myself having to roll with the punches. I also found that my first
Facebook password had been changed (and not by me), and had to reset it with a
stronger password. That was two weeks ago. The Facebook ban was temporary,
but the need to set up a FB business page was pointed out to me, and that’s what
I’ll have to do. My other blog (Rip’s Picks) was deleted (today, actually), no
reason given. It just isn’t there anymore, and I’m not going to fight that.

First FB, and now the old blog. What’s next?

I’m not going to fight, I’m going to change. Wipe out every trace of the old me. I
might even have to wipe out this me to become yet another new me. Do it now
before I gain real traction.

The picker side of me will need a new home geared toward that business,
everywhere I want to be. That means starting from scratch on Twitter, and other
social networking sites. I may even have to start a new store. I did close the old
store. I delivered the coffee set to a friend, so I know that sale was for real.

I deleted all the products before someone takes advantage of the cart, and then
ruins me with false claims or bad word of mouth. I can’t take the chance. Someone
out there wants to hurt me, and it’s probably someone I know. I’m not the first
person this has ever happened to, and won’t be the last. What a shame.

So, things that were once in the back of my mind when I discovered my password
had been changed, have come to the forefront. Nothing is ever as easy as you want
it.

I am sorry, though. I had a lot of great information to share, was sharing what I
thought was helpful to all readers, and not just writers, and now it’s over before I
even began.

Ask Yourself . . .

That’s right, ask yourself what I’m doing here, why I’m doing it, and how, and
then ask yourself why you come here to read each post. I’m taking little or
nothing, and I’m making something of it that works. I think you come here
because you’re in my boat, and we’re all paddling our asses off.

One thing we all realize is, the book industry isn’t going to get any easier, our
ability to market ourselves will shrink as book marketing opportunity prices climb,
and we will have to monetize our entire lives, online and off, in order to get ahead.
We’ll have to offer others something of real value.

That’s what I’m doing with each blog post. What I do has real value. So far I
talked about getting a store started, and I did that. It was free to start my store, I
can list 20 unique products, and I even sold one that first week, and I only had ten
products up at the time. I made money. I made enough to actually buy 3 Fiverr ads
promoting books, 2 ten dollar ads from a few of the cheapies promoting books, or
1 ad from one of the larger book marketing newsletters, and there’s a few.

That’s the power of what I’m doing here, and I wish you would join me.

Tonight I forego books anything and work on the store. I got a long night ahead of
me. I got pictures to take, crop, tweak, and descriptions to write out. I got an ad to
rebuild for Project Wonderful for Rip’s Picks. Project Wonderful will pay me for
ads placed on my site, and the amount depends on my actual traffic. It’s time for
me to get up and on with other social networks.

Wattpad, I’ll have to boost my reading there, and I’ve fallen behind on my writing.
Life can and does get in the way, and I got enough ideas saved up I can fly
through a few chapters. Since I’m a pantser, which means I don’t outline, the ideas
that stack up help.

I have other ideas I’m working on, and will boost my number of affiliate links.
I’ve decided I can and will do that in a way that ties into my blogging here.

In the meantime, become a follower, sign up for my Rip’s Picks newsletter, show
your appreciation and buy me a cup of coffee, read my story on Wattpad, vote,
leave a comment, or just buy a book. Read me for free through your
KindleUnlimited subscription.