Tag Archives: #ReadersWanted

Support for Writers

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The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

February 2 question – Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn’t around anymore? Anyone you miss?

Support for Writers

Throughout my writing career, I’ve had some terrific supporters. The best.

I’ve named them before in past blogs and posts: friends, other writers, librarians, bookstore owners.

The group we can’t forget, though, are the readers. You as a reader provide the best kind of support when you buy our books and leave reviews.

I love your reviews.

There is nothing like a word-of-mouth review or testimonial, but written reviews, on Goodreads or Amazon are gold and help other readers find us.

Thank you for your support.

*****

urpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time – and return comments. This group is all about connecting.

Going Wide…Maybe

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I can be so stupid sometimes.

Up until now, all of my eBooks have been published on Amazon and through their Amazon Select program, which means it’s sold exclusively through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU) program. Instead of buying books, those Amazon readers who pay a monthly fee get to read it and any other books they desire for no other charge.  

Up until now, half of my eBook royalties have come from pages getting read. The other option author have to sell their eBooks would be to go wide, which means remove it from KU, though I can still sell it on Amazon as an eBook and selling it through additional distributors. The best places that my research revealed and was highly approved of by other authors was to use Draft2Digital (D2D) and Smashwords, the latter only because D2D doesn’t distribute to it. D2D does distribute to digital stores: Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Tolino, and Vivlio; the subscription service of Scribd; and Kobo plus territories: Belgium, Netherlands, and Canada.

But, which eBook(s) did I want to start with, experiment with? I did some investigative research. One of my books, Grendel’s Mother, does extremely well with pages read and eBooks purchased through Amazon. My romances: Love’s New Beginnings, Tomorrow’s Wishes, and Determined Hearts do not. So, it had to be one of these latter three.

When you put an eBook into KU, you do so for 90 days. I’ve always chosen to have that 90 days renewed automatically. This time, I unclicked that auto-renewal box for the first one that would renew: Love’s New Beginnings.

Then, I went to D2D and uploaded the book. I put in my desired publication date, which would be the day after it came out of KU. I pushed the publish button thinking it wouldn’t publish until my indicated date.

To my horror, the book published immediately as a preorder book! No, no, no! Turn it off, turn it off!  

I scurried like a frantic squirrel in the road with an oncoming car: where to go?

Ten minutes later, I saw the panic button I needed to push. It said DELIST. I clicked on it. Immediately, my book was delisted. No more preorders.

A huge sigh of relief.

The day it was free from KU came and went. I kept checking D2D to see how the book was doing.

No sales. Nothing.

What??? How can that be? I had the publishing date correct.

Today, two weeks and a day later, I went back into D2D to check on the book. Still no sales. And then, I saw it.

DELISTED

Stupid! You have to republish it!

I pushed the publish button. Everything turned green. Yay.