Been a Week

Hard at work in the revision + editing department for The Shadow Groom. At the same time, notes are already stacking up for the next three books in my queue (Camera Obscura, A House of Profane Gods, and Valérian). In the course of which, by the way, I stumbled across a possible plot bunny for a "Pygmalion" retelling. Seeing as how that one's born from a moment of complete dejection, I'm not sure if it'll happen, but if I were to step back and stay focused and objective, I know I can do it.

If it does happen, it'll be something like a dark fairy tale of sorts. The only sticking point is the very personal nature of its source, if you will. I do have these moments on occasion whenever something triggers a specific thought that never fails to leave me depressed, and up until now, no story idea has ever come out of them. 

I've been drowning myself in books, too -- not that I've ever stopped, but up until the last few months, all of my reading's been done via e-book app. Now I'm doing a mixed bag of print (borrowed library books) and e-book (owned or borrowed), which also includes my Bucket List Reading. So far I've managed to read The War of the Worlds some months ago, and the most recent one was Logan's Run. Sadly, I DNF'd Logan's Run as I couldn't get into it, but there are still so many books out there screaming for my attention. So many books, so little time, and no room for regrets. 

I have Don Quixote somewhere in my queue, but considering the book's heft and text size, I'm going to have to finish the current pile of checked out books first before rolling up my mental sleeves and diving in.

My story ideas notebook is almost filled up, so I'm about to get a fresh one. However, I'm also getting into personal journaling as well as commonplace journaling. What I hope to do is mesh all three in one new notebook as a way of pulling myself off the internet and off my apps for longer and longer stretches of time every day. 

I've seen a number of videos on commonplace notebooks and on journaling, and a few of them seem very performative to me and less about the point of the exercise, which is something a person does privately. Anyway, that's the only beef I have about some of the content I've run across (and still run across), and since I've already dipped my toes into the pool for those two (been keeping a story ideas journal for ages now, so I be an expert on that), I already know how best to approach all three as one unit, using only one notebook. 

Hoping that'll yield dividends in the long run as being online is taxing as all hell, and I'm not getting any younger. At least the story ideas notebook has been my best friend for years, so it's just a matter of stretching my personal writing efforts a little further. 

 

Exclusive Store Sale Now On (and On and On...)

Just a quick post to let everyone know my store-wide perma-sale is now live. Everything -- save for the two novellas in my Dolores collection -- is marked down for all eternity (rather dramatic-sounding, but that's how it is). 

My books, including new titles, are discounted in tiers. The older the collection, the steeper the price drop. It starts with all the Grotesqueries collection at 60% off, which includes Doppelgänger that came out a couple of months ago (so still a baby). And then it goes up incrementally from there: 60%, 65%, 70%, and 75%. 

I was planning to do a BOGO, but Payhip requires an end date for that kind of sale, so I might as well tackle everything in one fell swoop and leave it be. 

When The Shadow Groom comes out, it'll be part of the perma-sale if you purchase it directly from my store. And so on and so forth. And thank you, as always, for your support.

'The Shadow Groom': Done! (Plus a Few More Things About Ye Olde D2D Drama)

Yeah, firstly, The Shdaow Groom is done! First draft is complete, and I left myself a lot of room for additional material meant to clarify a bunch of events in the story. This means the revision phase will be rather hardcore, but it's necessary. 

So in celebration, here's the obligatory happy dance video:

Actually, it's a perfect fit for the story, so I'm running with it. 😁 This book is on track (obvs) for the planned July 1 release, and when it's out, I'll be doing another BOGO sale over at my Payhip store to celebrate its publication.

And speaking of Payhip, I had to re-upload the files to the store because all links and end matter material (other than the "about the author" page) needed to be taken out as they all linked back to Draft2Digital. Books still distributed by them will have those pages and links, but not those I'm selling directly.

I'm still salty about raising my prices for the Grotesqueries books, but I'm also going to balance that out by doing perma-sales at my store. I was at first planning to offer monthly specials, but with my recent pivot, it'll be permanent -- as to what the sale would be, I'm looking at a number of options and still need to decide on which.

I do treat my writing and publishing as a business, which means earnings go back into the pot and pay for stuff I need to keep the machine going. Cover art image licenses, domain name, etc. -- those are supposed to be covered by my royalties, and if D2D will be taking an even bigger chunk off that, either I pay out of pocket with my day job earnings (all of which are already accounted for, budget-wise) or via credit card, which is my last resort if things go down that road. 

Do I regret sprouting roots in niche fiction? No. Never did, never will. But this is the way of things, and I gotta roll with the punches if I wish to stick around and see to the long tail of publishing my books.

Again, a final apology for the price bump for my Grotesqueries books and Ghosts and Tea sequels. If you do prefer to own my books as opposed to borrow them from library platforms or subscription services, keep an eye out for the perma-sale I'll be posting about soon.  

In the meantime, this is the final week for the 80% off sale for my Masks and Miscellanous collections. 

A Necessary Pivot (Re: D2D's New Fees)

I managed to talk myself off the ledge and have been trawling the 'net for indie author reactions to the news regarding Draft2Digital's fees, especially the $12 annual maintenance fee to be charged to authors who're already barely scraping by (you know, either new authors or niche authors like me in addition to other publishers and so on). 

And while I lump myself in with the group of unhappy writers who're already seeing our royalties cut down even more, I really had to weigh the benefits and the downsides of delisting my books from D2D and simply starting over elsewhere or just sticking to my Payhip site.

Now...

Payhip is non-negotiable in that it's here to stay even if no one's touching it yet. Maybe down the line I'll end up deleting yet again for that reason, but for the time being, it's staying. 

Losing D2D, however, means losing some of the places where my books have enjoyed a very, very modest amount of movement, i.e., Hoopla and Overdrive, both of which are library platforms (very important to me). I absolutely refuse to lose those as well as the listings I now have over at Bookshop.org and all those small, indie bookstores. 

There's a lot of scammers and bad actors out there trying to game the system for a quick buck, and those of us who are legitimate writers, particularly writers of niche fiction, get swept up in the shitty currents when companies like D2D (rightfully so) do what they can to stem the tide of garbage. And speaking on behalf of other niche writers or writers who're still in the process of finding their audience, we get really burned when our own efforts are so easily dismissed as hobbies or inconsequential noise (because of low sales) and are targeted with fees many of us can't afford.

And after a lot of thinking, rethinking, and future projecting, I'm afraid I'm forced to pivot.

In brief, guys, I have to raise the e-book prices for my entire Grotesqueries collection as well as the novella sequels to the Ghosts and Tea series. 

IT

SUCKS.

But if I want to keep my books in online libraries and other stores, that's one way of bridging the gap and ensuring I cross the minimum threshold that's now expected from everyone. I didn't want to do it, and it was all I could do to stick to a price point that's at the lowest end of the "sweet spot" in indie publishing ($2.99 - $4.99). All those books I referred to are now priced at $2.99. *

I thought at first that people would be more willing to take a chance on someone like me if I kept the price at 99 cents, but a low list price apparently isn't flying as well as I'd hoped. Readers tend to be put off, I think, by low prices since they instill doubt in the quality of the books being sold. ** I don't know how well this new price will go, and, apparently, I'm given till February of 2027 to turn things around or I get more money taken out (in addition to the cut D2D already takes from my gross receipts). 

If it still doesn't pan out by then, I'll go ahead and delist my books and sell direct. *** 

My Payhip store's already updated with the new prices, but one thing that won't change is the fact that my store will be enjoying way more sales than other online stores since it's my personal playground. Heck, it's more important now than ever that I do that, right?   

Anyway, I'm so sorry, everyone. As for print prices, those will stay the same. Print books are expensive as it is, and I'm already gritting my teeth over the e-book pivot. 

I'll be updating my pages throughout the day, so if this place gets a bit wonky, you know why. 

* Incidentally, the $1.99 price point is also somehow ignored or avoided by readers. 

** Here's a page on e-book pricing and perception bias. Guess I was right. 😣 

*** I've opened an account with Ingram Spark as a backup, but I'm still reading up on their services. 

New Draft2Digital Policy = I'm On My Own (How Lovely)

Okay, Draft2Digital just posted a new thing they're doing, which really screws over legitimate writers like me who barely make sales. While the post makes sense and we understand why they're doing it, the platform no longer has everyone's best interests in mind. 

So firstly, there's going to be a fee onboarding new authors. That's not what I'm annoyed about. This is the part that's not good:

Annual Maintenance Fee: An annual maintenance fee of $12 will apply to accounts whose earnings from book sales, meaning your net proceeds after D2D’s commission, total less than $100 over the preceding 12-month period. If you earn $100 or more from your book sales over 12 months, you will not be charged this fee.

I've always been a writer who loves putting out books in a very, very small genre: gay gothic horror. With hardly any romance, at that, so in that sense, I'm already screwed since the books that sell the most are romances of all stripes. And I'm cool with that. I write the kind of books I want to read, and I know there are readers out there who also enjoy them.

Here's the kicker, and I'm going to be up front about my sales: I average less than $10 per month in royalties. That's right. Less than ten bucks. I'm used to it, and I'm lucky enough to be working full-time at a job I actually enjoy. I don't need to make millions off my books, and I like that the pressure to keep putting out books to maintain high earnings isn't there. The last thing I want is for my writing to turn into another job. Know what I mean? That's a shortcut for creative disaster in my case.

So I'm getting backed into a corner. 

Before this, D2D reduced the royalty rates over at their Smashwords store. And then they put a cap on the monthly checks so that you have to earn at least $10 a month for you to enjoy a deposit into your account for each month. So now not only do I earn less from their main store, I also get to be paid every other month. 

That was the reason why I opened (or re-opened) my Payhip store, and as of this post's writing, I've sold nothing over there. It may very well change if I take the nuclear option and pull my books from D2D and simply sell them from my store. That actually would be the ideal solution in the end, but I've always been willing to offer readers as many options as possible. 

I do have an Amazon KDP account, which has been inactive in years, but it's still there. I hardly sell books at Amazon, anyway, regardless, so that's not even on my plate. There are too many things about Amazon that leave a bad taste in my mouth despite their being the largest retailer of e-books. I'd rather take my chances with my piddling direct sales store front. 

Anyway, you can tell I'm not only annoyed, but absolutely dispirited by all this. I'm going to learn to format my own .epub books so I can do everything on my own. Eventually I will be pulling my books from D2D and will be selling direct. Period. The print books will be another thing, too, so we'll have to see. 

I'm not giving up on writing. I do it for the love of the act of storytelling and sharing my weird shit with those who share my taste in fiction. I love adding my books to a tiny, tiny niche and seeing it well-fed, in a manner of speaking. But, yeah -- money talks, and if I don't make it, I have to take my ball and leave the playground. 

At any rate, I'll be talking about this in the future, I'm sure.