And I tell people, please review! At least poke the star rating! That alone helps! A review that's three words long helps! A lot! I can see now that publishing on Amazon only is a book-killer. No one wants to review there.

I had no choice this time. It's got a color interior, and I wanted hardback books, and Amazon was the only one that currently could do that for me. When my three month lock-in is done, I'm taking it to Ingram Spark.

But every morning I see that one lonely review and I literally tear up. Dammit. Book creation should be joyful, not tearful.

Okay - vent over. I'll be fine, but please know that I am not alone in these feelings. Be kind to authors out there, whenever you can.

The book is currently #521 in 19th Century World History. It was at #1. It's heading for the basement fast enough to need a braking chute.

Aw! I wonder if I could order it through my local library. Once you can, of couse. Or I'd order it directly from you, and you'd keep the "handling fees." But for now, I am sorry, but not buying anything through Amazon.

StereoNacht: If I were with Draft2Digital, as I usually am, It would be distributed to the big library suppliers, easy. In fact, everything would be easier. In hindsight, I should have just set up an account and learned Ingham Sparks system. But right now it is what it is. No worries, Stereo, I appreciate your honesty. It's refreshing, actually.

StereoNacht I would be happy to send you a pdf or .docx version for free. I know you can't review it, just a thank you for stating what others are just being quiet about. I could probably upload it right here in a private plurk to you.

Heh. I want a hardcover. I am sure it is worth it. I'll find a way to get it, eventually. Just sorry I can't support you right now.

Oh! Maybe you could come to a comic con in Montreal, and I could buy one directly from you there?

I am SO sorry, I dropped the ball. Review is posted on Goodreads.

StereoNacht: The hardcovers are $20 at Amazon... I can't advance-guess what they will be through Ingham Spark since I don't know the cost of printing yet. I COULD mail you one. I have a boxful due here this coming weekend!

Fogwoman: Thank you! No need to apologize, especially not for such a charming review. That means a lot to me.

CeejayWriter: That would work. I'd be happy to send you the money. I'd rather do a bank transfer, but PayPal can be used.

StereoNacht: PayPal would be better for me, I use my statements in there to help keep my author accounting info updated. A bank transfer would "mix" my personal funds and my author funds and be confusing. Private Plurk me your mailing address and a paypal email? I'll plan on getting your book prepared and in the mail as soon as my stock arrives!

Also... thank you everyone for putting up with this Pity Party Plurk yesterday. I wasn't have a good day for various reasons and my brain zeroed in on this and blew it a bit out of proportion.

Hey! No worry. If it allowed to blow off some steam, even if at a side annoyance, then it's worthy.

StereoNacht: 😊Plurk is my safe haven. l don't mention it in other places. here is where we can be ourselves, methinks.

CeejayWriter: please do bring up stuff that we can actually help with!!

Fogwoman: Pretty much anything that piques people's interest in reading it would help! Considering the no-buy Amazon challenge, I can't really recommend giving it as a gift, but you could ask local indie stores if they'd consider stocking it. I can work with them to get copies into their hands.

Honestly, I am over the spasmodic attempts to boycott Amazon. We worship capitalism in this country to the point where our primary product as a nation is dragons. Then get indignant when monopolies have removed all our other options. I happily suggest your book as a gift. And invite anyone objecting to create more options.

Fogwoman: I adore you. I'm working on some options for people who don't want to buy from Amazon. Basically it involves ME buying my books at author's cost, and reselling them myself. Amazon is involved, of course, BUT they won't be getting their cut of my royalties, if that's helpful to know. I plan to set them up in my Ko-Fi store.

Ko-Fi is slowly becoming a strong alternative to Amazon, who would have thought it?

I've had my ebooks there for a while, and they do well. The print books will be something I have to take one step at a time, since I'll need to have my own inventory, mailing envelopes, etc etc etc and set up separate accounting to track books and payments. My shop is here: https://ko-fi.com/...

I've set up an account now at IngramSpark, and will use them for my 10th Anniversary edition of The Flight To Brassbright. I won't be moving my Amazon books over there, at least not yet. There's too much cost involved in doing so to justify right now.

And ya know? This is why Indie Authors need lots of love. All we really want to do is write. All we end up doing, most days, is accounting and promotion.

Since I have to get my books on audio these days, Audible (owned by Amazon) is the main source for most of them. Lots of other places sell audiobooks, but have identical but much smaller catalogs. Audiobooks cost more to produce, and even more than that to produce well.

Fogwoman: I haven't been keeping up on audiobook news, but I suspect AI is going to make producing them fast and cheap. Ew.

Fogwoman CeejayWriter this is from a month ago, but it shows how Audible is screwing authors now.The Audible Situation Got Much Worse

Daniel has some follow-up vids. The situation and story are still ongoing.

Viksbelle: Yeah... I've watched a few vids on that situation and it's terrible. I won't be using the service anymore. In fact, now that you've reminded me, I should go retire the couple of books I have there. No one buys them in that format anyway.

I'm waiting out my contract on Blood Curse. I know for a fact a few people have bought it, but I only have record of one sale from ACX. Don't remember if I ever got paid for it.

I haven't sold any for a while (or so they SAY). I show a past history of 24 sales for Flight to Brassbright, but they are long ago. I need to dig through the terms and find out how to gracefully get out.

Did you do royalty share? If you paid in full for the narration, you should be able to just pull the audiobook. Might have to make sure they won't penalize you for putting it up on other platforms right away. Amazon can be petty. My old publisher had to sell copies of a title a bookstore bought for a signing then returned the unsold copies, but they had to

keep it hush-hush that they were selling for less than the Amazon list price to keep Amazon from pulling ALL the publisher's catalog as punishment.

Viksbelle: Royalty share, one full length novel and three short stories.

For royalty share, you'll have to cough up money to the narrator to compensate them for potential lost revenue from pulling an audiobook.

Viksbelle: I think I can work that out. The narrator is a friend.

For the novel, that is. The three little books, I really don't care. They've all been swept into an anthology now, anyway.

CeejayWriter: It already is. “Authors” are producing genre books using various AI tools, and “virtual voices” are reading them. Most go directly to the free for members bin, and are more unlistenable than the worst narrators. And of course the floodgates are open.

I know some of the performers unions are suing companies selling AI dupes of members voices, but the stuff I am hearing in previews is more like decades old satnav reading a book.
One of the clues is all the words with pronunciation determined by context. Bad readers may mess up a few, but AI really botches it.

Fogwoman: It's a freaking mess out there.

The best part is when AI reads smutty romance though. Freaking hilarious.

Fogwoman: So far I have avoided this. Maybe I'll indulge a little. I could use the laughs.