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Posts tagged ‘Amazon’

Oct 9

30 Comments

Getting back into the swing of things

I’m going to admit right off the bat that my brain is not fully functional, at least not for much more than caring for Mom. One week ago today, she had reverse shoulder replacement. She’s doing great, especially considering her age. By day two post-op, she’d cut the pain meds down to half. By day four, she cut them out entirely except for at night. The problem is she is right-handed, profoundly right-handed and it was her right shoulder they replaced. So, for the next five weeks or more, that arm is in a sling and she can’t use that hand for much more than holding her cellphone. She hates asking for help. I am trying not to hover too much and I am once again sleeping–or not–like I used to when my son was a toddler.

But that also means I’m out of the loop about what’s going on in the world of publishing. Well, not exactly out of the loop but what I have been privy to isn’t for pubic consumption–yet. Read more

Sep 20

8 Comments

Cover(s) reveal and a bit more

Before we get to the cover reveal, here’s a head’s up. If you were publishing your print books through Createspace, be prepared to move over to the KDP platform or find some other service for your print needs. I’ve used the KDP system when it was still in beta and it’s actually a bit easier to use than the Createspace interface was. The problem now is there’s this little question they ask without giving you any real explanation about what they mean or what the impact of answering “yes” will be. Read more

Aug 21

16 Comments

Shaking Things Up, Pt. 2

Last week, I wrote about how I was considering shaking things up, at least a few things, in my professional life. Specifically, I’d been considering taking an underperforming series off-sale, do a quick re-edit and then rebrand it before doing a re-launch. Well, I’ve made the decision, started the process and have been looking beyond just the re-launch into what I can do to help boost sales across the board (hopefully without spending too much money in the process). Read more

Jul 24

34 Comments

A new form of Amazon Derangement Syndrome

The other day, Forbes published a post entitled “Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money”. Yes, you read that right.  The article was written by Long Island University Post economics professor, Panos Mourdoukoutas. All I can say is if this is his idea of fiscal responsibility, I don’t want my kids or grandkids (when I have them) studying under him and I am really glad he isn’t on my city council. For it’s part, Forbes has realized just how ill-advised it was to publish the post. Why? Because after only a couple of days, the post is gone from the Forbes site. If you follow the link provided in a number of places, you get a 404 (or 4-0-Forbes) error.

Not that it has caused Mourdoukoutas to take down his tweet announcing the post. Read more

Jul 21

9 Comments

Chicken Little

It’s been a while since I read it – my kids are all teenagers now! All four of them! (Ok, shutting the existential crisis up for a few) – but as I recall, Chicken Little was not a precautionary tale. It didn’t end with ‘the sky was really falling down, and as the world ended in fire and ashes, Chicken Little danced on the bones of his barnyard pals, finally vindicated in his unheeded prophecy.’

Instead, Chicken Little was about a small hen who panicked at the smallest provocation, like a ripe apple falling from a tree, and learned through wise guidance to keep her chill. My kids say something like this all the time to each other. “Keep your chill! Keep it!” and the other one will wail back “I can’t! I can’t keep it!” Because teens, and hormones, and all the feels, y’know, man? I can dig it. Read more

Jul 17

14 Comments

More Amazon outrage, but is it justified?

It’s a new month and you know what that means. Amazon is being hated all over again. No, I’m not talking about the technical glitches it had yesterday during the early hours of its Prime Day event. Yes, I’m one of those grumbling about it because I missed out on something because, when the item went live and I clicked on it, I got the “Oops, we are experiencing a problem right now”. I lost out on the item as a result. But that’s not the current outrage, at least not in the writing community. If you’re on social media or if you follow the Kindle Boards, you know there’s a new round of “Amazon is pulling author accounts without explaining why!”

I’ve seen some references to some author having his or her account yanked. Then others chime in and claim they know someone else it happened to. Now, all this might be true but when I see no supporting evidence, no names, not substance, I find myself wondering. When someone dares to comment that it looks like a dogpile or witch hunt, they’re slammed by others in the thread. After all, if someone said it happened, it did and Amazon is evil. Read more

Jun 26

21 Comments

On going indie and an announcement

When I sat down in the much too early hours of the morning to write this post, I found myself at a loss. My brain is fried and the ability to come up with something new seemed beyond me. So, as I will often do when I’m unsure what to blog about, I started checking out a few writing-related sites to see what they had to say. Nothing really jumped out at me until I started scrolling through The Passive Voice. One article in particular caught my eye. I’m not going to actually discuss the article, so I’m not linking to it. However, the idea behind the article did set me to thinking — something that might be dangerous since I’m pre-coffee. Read more

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