Tick. Tick. BOOOOOM!!! There. Do you feel better now? We're nearing the end of DAY TWO of Amazon's new royalty pay out system for the books borrowed through their Kindle Unlimited program. How many of you have been on your computers wailing, gnashing your teeth and sending out furious hashtag filled tweets across the Internet? Has the world come to an end for you?
Sorry, but all this craziness is over the top. The program just started up yesterday and there are authors lamenting they'll have to find some other way to get money since their income will be drastically cut. All based on less than 48 hours of figures. (Click HERE to read a great blog post by Hugh Howey) Now some want to throw in the towel since they may have to wait an entire month or maybe two to determine if the program will continue to pay them what they've been used to receiving while they've been faithful Amazon exclusive authors. Oh wait, maybe those were some of the hundreds of authors who busted up their novels into ten page pamphlets so that they would get paid the full royalty as soon as the reader opened their files on their Kindle?
If you were one of those authors who deliberately released those shorts, then you have no one but yourself to blame for Amazon's change up. You should NOT have been receiving the same royalty as someone who published a 100 or 200 page novel. You cheated the system and ended up causing Amazon to lose more money than they were already bleeding through their publishing side of their company. Another group to blame are authors and their publishers who abused the system by having others repeatedly borrow books, scroll through 10% or a more for good measure, then return the book only to turn around in a day or two and borrow the book again. Now the author/publisher is getting double or more of the royalty intended for the "book". Tell me where that practice was ever fair? With all the barely there "books" in the system, how could Amazon sustain the program as it was? How could authors who take the time to develop beautifully written novellas and novels get a break and be noticed in the sea of crap? My friend and fellow author Zoey Derrick posted about this very thing within the last hour. Here's the LINK to her post. She'd made the choice to become exclusive to Amazon only a month ago and has decided to give it the full 90 days to see how it works for her and her readers. I think she made a wise decision. Two days of numbers won't give her a good idea of how things pan out. I applaud her for staying in there. She is one of the authors who write FULL length books with fabulous characters and stories that grab you and never let go. She may very well be one of the success stories with this new system because readers will WANT to complete the entire book and Zoey will be paid accordingly. I gave Amazon exclusivity a go with one of the anthologies and it was not good for me. My readers kept asking when it would be out on Kobo, iTunes, BN and All Romance/Omnilit. I had built up a following there and didn't want to disappoint them. Once my 90 days was up, I pulled it out of Kindle Select and never looked back. That was the best decision for me and all of my pen names. Subscription services on the surface look great for the consumer. You pay a flat monthly fee and you're able to borrow as many books as you can read. Amazon only let you "check out" ten at a time but once you finished reading any of them, you could send them back and fill those slots again. Well, companies offering these services grossly underestimated the voracious appetites of romance and erotica readers. This is why there will be more restructuring... Scribd just dropped a huge chunk of romance and erotica books from their listings. They couldn't continue to pay the authors the full royalty for books borrowed out of what they were taking in from the subscribers. Unfortunately, instead of reworking and renegotiating the rates, Scribd dropped a shit ton of books angering their distribution partners, authors and readers all in one swoop. Oyster hasn't listed any of my adult books. At first I thought it was yet another site snubbing the hot stuff, but no. It's all about money. Just like with Amazon.
Lesson through all of this is you must treat your writing and publishing as a business. You have to do what's right for you, your brand, and your work. If keeping exclusive to Amazon is what you want...do it but stop bitching. There will be ups and downs. Either ride it out, or get the hell out of dodge. Amazon isn't the only vendor out there. If you spread out, PROMOTE those other sites! don't assume readers will just stumble over your work and you'll take off. It takes work—a hell of a lot of hours of it to get your books in front of readers. If this is what you want to do for a living, then get off your ass and DO IT! Until next time, ~The Fat Chick
So you've finally finished that manuscript you've been slaving away at for quite some time. It's as polished as you can get it, been through three or four rounds of brutal edits, and now you're ready to send it off to a publisher. Last week, fellow WWoW author Lacey Wolfe wrote about making sure you do your research before just sending off your "baby." Her post was filled with excellent advice and it made me want to take it a step further. Instead of sending it off to a publisher, why not do it yourself? Relax. Stop hyperventilating for just a second and let me explain. I've published my writing now in both the traditional and Indie routes and I have to say I LOVE both of them. They are different experiences and I've learned a great deal over the last year. I was lucky enough to send my very first erotic romance to a well-established publisher in the market. They encouraged the authors to interact with and learn from each other. As a "newbie" I really appreciated that sort of guidance. It was because of these fabulous authors, that I decided to take what they taught me and venture out on my own a bit by self-publishing my first book of poetry. One thing I learned a long time ago and a bit of advice that still holds true today is NEVER, EVER pay to have your book published. This does not mean not to pay to have someone design your cover art, or do professional editing. What it does mean is that you shouldn't have to give a "publisher" money up front in order for them to publish your book in print or ebook form. If you do sign a contract with these vanity presses as they are called, you could be in for a world of hurt. Not only have you paid them to put out your book, but you may see very little royalties from them at all. To top it off, some of the more unscrupulous types have you under contract for your future endeavors as well.
Don't be so hell bent on getting your book published that you fall for this kind of trap. There are so many FREE alternatives out there. For me, I started out with Smashwords. This is an excellent way for you to get your ebook out to multiple markets at the same time. They distribute to Apple, Sony, Barnes and Noble, Amazon (although they've had some formatting issues that are still being worked out), libraries and various other outlets.
Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, put together a complete guide to formatting your manuscript so that it will be able to go through their system. The Smashwords Style Guideis a concise and straight forward manual. You can't publish to the site without following the precise guidelines, so go ahead and download your free copy today. It's even available on Amazon. The guide was recently updated in June 2012, so make sure you get the latest version. I got mine from Smashwords.
As I mentioned previously, Smashwords and Amazon were having some issues with their systems not being compatible or something odd. So instead of waiting for them to work that out, I chose to opt out of Smashwords sending my book to Amazon so that I could upload my book there myself. Amazon requires the file to be in PDF format to upload to their site and they have a few other rules you'll want to follow. Here's the GUIDE for them...and yes it's free too. If you choose, you can opt into the KDP program (Kindle Direct Publishing Program) where you agree to keep your book exclusively on Amazon for at least 90 days. In exchange, you can offer your book for free at specific intervals. This could be a good marketing tool for you if you choose to do it. I liked that idea, but didn't want to keep my book just with Amazon. If you go with Smashwords as well, you can create coupon codes to be able to offer your book at a discounted price or even for free at different times. This option has worked great for me and for many others. Some of my other author friends have enjoyed the KDP program with Amazon. The choice is yours. Pick the program that fits YOU and your writing the best and run with it!
So now that you've got the ebook publishing under your belt, how about print? Well, Smashwords doesn't offer that service and Amazon KDP program is for the ebooks, so where do you go? Amazon to the rescue here! They have an affiliate called Createspace. Here you can upload your book, pick the size of the paperback you wish to put out, choose your cover from their prefabricated covers, or upload your own. Once you have things the way you want them, you can order a proof to be sent to you for final approval. This is the only cost to you at this point. For my poetry book it was less than three bucks.
Once you approve that, within a few days (usually less than 24 hours), your book will be available for purchase through Createspace and Amazon. That distribution is free. If you wish to have your book sent to some other groups such as libraries and universities, you can opt into that distribution program for less than $30. For me, this has already been paid for ten times over through the sales of the print version of my book. So after you've done all your research and chosen a publisher, go ahead and submit your manuscript to them for consideration. While you wait for their answer, read up on how to publish through Smashwords and Amazon. Finish up that next manuscript and publish it yourself. You too can reap the benefits of working with a traditional publisher and going the Indie route. Trust me. You'll be glad you did! Here's another article for your consideration when doing research on Indie publishing. Five Reasons to Publish Your Ebooks On Smashwords puts it out there in black and white why you should give Smashwords a try. Please visit the other Writer's Words of Wisdom Authors participating this week.
