Release day, among other things. Cat’s Paw is now live on Amazon. I’m thrilled and scared and all the other emotions that go with having a new book come out. But I’m also exhausted. I couldn’t figure out why this book took so much out of me. Then I looked at my KDP dashboard and realized I’ve put out three books in less than three months. I’ve put out five titles since March. And that doesn’t count the two books that are basically outlined and roughly drafted that I’ve been working on as well.
A quick final word count for just the titles published this year comes in at close to 500k words. If you add all the editing, scenes that were cut, other writing I’ve done (those two books I mentioned above and my blogging here, on my site and Victory Girls), total word count is probably closer to 800k words or more.
This isn’t meant as bragging but to drive home that point that being a writer is WORK. You have to put butt in chair and do it. Some of the words will be crap. I know some of mine are. But the best lesson you can learn is to accept that and move on. Give yourself permission to write sucky stuff. Just don’t hit the publish button with it.
But the work goes beyond just writing. You have to keep up with the industry. As an indie, you have to stay on top of the platforms you are publishing on and watching what they do. For example, have you noticed lately that the Look Inside feature on Amazon isn’t always available when a new book comes out–at least a new book from an indie author?
I hadn’t mainly because I’ve not been doing all that much reading for entertainment and what I have done has mainly been books I either pre-ordered months ago or that were already in my TBR pile. Then I saw a friend had a new book out a couple of weeks ago and went over to order it. Of course, me being me, I wanted to check out the preview. Except it wasn’t there. So I contacted the friend and asked about it. He’s been trying to get the preview up for close to two weeks now and nothing.
I’d hoped it was a glitch in the system. Except, when Cat’s Paw came out this morning, for the first time I didn’t have the Look Inside function available on one of my titles. WTF?!?
So I went digging. Seems Amazon has changed some stuff and they now say it can take several days after a title has gone live for the function to work. But. . . you knew there had to be a but there somewhere. . . you can grab a link off the product page to imbed on your own site or elsewhere that will take the reader to what is essentially the Look Inside feature. Here’s what I get for my latest:
Cool right?
Except it doesn’t help me on the Amazon page. So, at the much too early hour of 0500 this morning, I rattled off an email to someone I know who can get me the answer to the burning question of “why change something that wasn’t broken?”. I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, for all you writers out there, look for that embed link on your product page. It is below the option to buy the book. Look for the icons that let you share the link on various social media platforms. It acutally says “embed”.
In the meantime, check out Cat’s Paw. If you thought life was interesting for Mac Santos and friends before, just wait. She’s in for even more changes and not all of them are going to be easy to accept.
But walking away isn’t going to be easy. Someone out there is determined to prove monsters do walk the face of the Earth and that they are the top of the proverbial food chain. They don’t care how many lives are lost or how many innocents are hurt. This is war and Mac and those she loves are in the middle of ground zero.
Leaving the DPD may no longer be an option. Yet the restrictions placed on her as a cop may prevent her from stopping the carnage, especially since she doesn’t know where the danger comes from or where it will strike next.
Featured Image by Martina Bulková from Pixabay
Mad Genius Club 
Reblogged this on Head Noises and commented:
If you just released a book on Amazon and can’t get the “look inside” to work, share it to your blog or other platforms and people can do the “look inside.”
Quote:
I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, for all you writers out there, look for that embed link on your product page. It is below the option to buy the book. Look for the icons that let you share the link on various social media platforms. It actually says “embed”.
We wouldn’t exist if it were not for Amazon but we also never make the mistake of thinking Amazon is on our side or is our friend. They’re on their side and their rules are subject to change without notice.
They’re a business but like any business, they make decisions that to us, on the outside, make zero sense. Do you ever get the feeling that some of what we see on the outside is the result of internal turf wars?
It’s also the result of external turf wars in all the jurisdictions they operate in. Just yesterday, a BLM/Antifa type was saying that if Amazon doesn’t stop publishing ANY “conservative” content, their fulfillment centers would be blockaded: “Nothing in, nothing out.”
Good heavens. Could it be any plainer what kind of absolute dictatorship they want. Who decides? That circular firing squad the left usually devolves into can’t come soon enough.
The endless joys of releases.