Heidi Fisk's Blog, page 15
March 30, 2018
It seems that ranking has returned to Erotica books
Around a week ago, for some reason all ranking for erotica books and authors vanished from Amazon's author central as well as the book page itself, only keeping the genre.
As of today, that is no longer the case. Which makes me wonder what this whole thing was about, if it is going to happen again and why it happened in the first place.
Half of the people reporting it took note that it was a glitch that so happened to only remove one genres ranking.
Others who were reporting it and got in contact with Amazon reported that it wasn't a glitch and they were removing ranks.
You see the issue here?
While I do agree some of us may have jumped the gun. I also think that Amazon can do a much better job informing their writers/content creators about this sort of thing.
Even they were removing ranks, give us a heads-up so we can prepare or won't freak out when it happens.
If you are experiencing a glitch or moving books from one section to another. (I honestly think this happened because they removed some romance novels to erotica and it messed with the rankings) then e-mail us and give us information.
When people remain silent, it leads them to thinking the worst possible outcome, even if that outcome is far from the truth.
As of today, that is no longer the case. Which makes me wonder what this whole thing was about, if it is going to happen again and why it happened in the first place.
Half of the people reporting it took note that it was a glitch that so happened to only remove one genres ranking.
Others who were reporting it and got in contact with Amazon reported that it wasn't a glitch and they were removing ranks.
You see the issue here?
While I do agree some of us may have jumped the gun. I also think that Amazon can do a much better job informing their writers/content creators about this sort of thing.
Even they were removing ranks, give us a heads-up so we can prepare or won't freak out when it happens.
If you are experiencing a glitch or moving books from one section to another. (I honestly think this happened because they removed some romance novels to erotica and it messed with the rankings) then e-mail us and give us information.
When people remain silent, it leads them to thinking the worst possible outcome, even if that outcome is far from the truth.
March 29, 2018
My plans for series moving forward.
Currently, I'm not in a rough patch. However between amazon removing rankings for erotica novels as well as some of my artist being consistently busy, I might change some things up for my schedule.
I will confirm the last novella for Those Who Love Monster Girls will be entering creation sometime next month and will be finished for sure sometime late April or early May.
The next novella will be Monster Girl Carnival will be released sometime early or mid April.
Sorry for all the delays and even though I said that I will be writing Those Who Love Monster girls this month, between scheduling etc, things fell behind.
With that said, I have no plans on stopping writing Erotica and I will be keeping a closer eyes on my sales. It is a shame that I just don't have a author rank anymore, but I feel if I try to completely change direction it would do more harm than good.
I do plan on writing some non erotica stuff. However it will never be my major genre I write.
Also, one of my Novellas.
Bunny Hop
Is currently free for the next 5 days on Amazon
I will confirm the last novella for Those Who Love Monster Girls will be entering creation sometime next month and will be finished for sure sometime late April or early May.
The next novella will be Monster Girl Carnival will be released sometime early or mid April.
Sorry for all the delays and even though I said that I will be writing Those Who Love Monster girls this month, between scheduling etc, things fell behind.
With that said, I have no plans on stopping writing Erotica and I will be keeping a closer eyes on my sales. It is a shame that I just don't have a author rank anymore, but I feel if I try to completely change direction it would do more harm than good.
I do plan on writing some non erotica stuff. However it will never be my major genre I write.
Also, one of my Novellas.
Bunny Hop
Is currently free for the next 5 days on Amazon
March 28, 2018
Gaining and Keeping Readership
Readership has always been interesting for me. I actually quite like the options goodreads give for authors to interact with other authors as well as readers.
And while KDP is really shaky (The recent events with Erotica and their ranks) I can't say the option to have 5 free giveaway days every 3 months isn't awful.
At the same time it goes without saying, as more and more authors turn to self-publishing it often times becomes harder to stand out. Honestly finding a niche of what you write and going with that is important.
While I have other series, the lack of Monster Girl related stuff on the market place really helped me to wedge myself there.
And while KDP is really shaky (The recent events with Erotica and their ranks) I can't say the option to have 5 free giveaway days every 3 months isn't awful.
At the same time it goes without saying, as more and more authors turn to self-publishing it often times becomes harder to stand out. Honestly finding a niche of what you write and going with that is important.
While I have other series, the lack of Monster Girl related stuff on the market place really helped me to wedge myself there.
March 26, 2018
Artistic freedom and expectations.
Well, the title for this is somewhat of a lie. It's less about writing for an audience, and rather if you should change the content of your book or story to fit a wider or smaller range of people.
This topic came to mind where I often see people complain about the lack of certain character types etc in a genre.
This is a...rather interesting problem. I will, however say this as bluntly as possible. Everyone has the right to create the story they want, as diverse or lacking in diversity as they wish it to be.
To remove such a thing from the author whether it be due to profit or a misinformed sense of self-righteousness of doing the right thing.
The one beautiful thing about books is that they are usually a result of one person story and ideas. And while there are editors and cover-artist that may pop their head in and make a few changes. Usually what is on the page came directly from the writers head.
Even more so with self-publishing, there are far less things to worry about compared to something like a movie or a video game. Even comics have things they have to worry about.
I would never want someone to tell a writer to change a gay character straight because it would be more profitable. Nor would I want them to be forced to add a gay character or a minority for the sake of pure diversity without any context to that diversity.
We should be letting each author voice sing and filter as little as possible form their head to the page.
Sorry if this feels odd. I was wondering if I should even publish this Blog since I know it's very much a hot-topic currently.
Above all I value individuals being able to create what they want to create. Even if I may not enjoy it, doesn't mean it doesn't have an audience or doesn't need to exist. I just wished more people thought that way.
This topic came to mind where I often see people complain about the lack of certain character types etc in a genre.
This is a...rather interesting problem. I will, however say this as bluntly as possible. Everyone has the right to create the story they want, as diverse or lacking in diversity as they wish it to be.
To remove such a thing from the author whether it be due to profit or a misinformed sense of self-righteousness of doing the right thing.
The one beautiful thing about books is that they are usually a result of one person story and ideas. And while there are editors and cover-artist that may pop their head in and make a few changes. Usually what is on the page came directly from the writers head.
Even more so with self-publishing, there are far less things to worry about compared to something like a movie or a video game. Even comics have things they have to worry about.
I would never want someone to tell a writer to change a gay character straight because it would be more profitable. Nor would I want them to be forced to add a gay character or a minority for the sake of pure diversity without any context to that diversity.
We should be letting each author voice sing and filter as little as possible form their head to the page.
Sorry if this feels odd. I was wondering if I should even publish this Blog since I know it's very much a hot-topic currently.
Above all I value individuals being able to create what they want to create. Even if I may not enjoy it, doesn't mean it doesn't have an audience or doesn't need to exist. I just wished more people thought that way.
March 25, 2018
So, Amazon removed rankings for both Erotica Novels and Authors
Recently, around the 23rd of this month amazon removed overall rankings for Erotica on their storefront. Not only that, but authors who primary write erotica can no longer see their rank in author central. (At least in the US)
This is, very concerning, since while ranks doesn't mean much unless you are in the top 100. It sets a somewhat dangerous example.
Not only does this mean that Erotica authors have less features in the US than others, but it feels that some of them are getting punished for classifying their books correctly.
There is an untold rule that it's better to put erotica under romance for a larger audience to see. While I don't agree with that, I can't dismiss it when things like this happens.
What's worse, is that Erotica already has their own rankings etc away from the rest of the genres...ALL genres do. So what would be in the top 100 for erotica probably won't be in the top 100 for the storefront as a whole.
Same thing with author rank. Just because I'm in the top 500 for erotica authors doesn't mean I'm in the top 500 for all of the books and genres.
At the very least I can say it doesn't change visibility for your book yet. However, how long does it take for it to do so?
It seemed that recently a new law has been passed and most authors are assuming that the reason for this is because of that.
Mostly because said law would put responsibility of any illegal content on a website onto the site itself and not the user.
If it is because of that, then it is very confusing. Since anything short of taking actual pictures of people and posting them wouldn't fall under this.
That and Amazon has their own rules and the ability to report content that break those rules. So it's not like anything can be allowed on the storefront.
I will wait a few weeks to see if I am personal impacted by the changes, I will say not being able to check how my novella's doing can be a bother however.
This is, very concerning, since while ranks doesn't mean much unless you are in the top 100. It sets a somewhat dangerous example.
Not only does this mean that Erotica authors have less features in the US than others, but it feels that some of them are getting punished for classifying their books correctly.
There is an untold rule that it's better to put erotica under romance for a larger audience to see. While I don't agree with that, I can't dismiss it when things like this happens.
What's worse, is that Erotica already has their own rankings etc away from the rest of the genres...ALL genres do. So what would be in the top 100 for erotica probably won't be in the top 100 for the storefront as a whole.
Same thing with author rank. Just because I'm in the top 500 for erotica authors doesn't mean I'm in the top 500 for all of the books and genres.
At the very least I can say it doesn't change visibility for your book yet. However, how long does it take for it to do so?
It seemed that recently a new law has been passed and most authors are assuming that the reason for this is because of that.
Mostly because said law would put responsibility of any illegal content on a website onto the site itself and not the user.
If it is because of that, then it is very confusing. Since anything short of taking actual pictures of people and posting them wouldn't fall under this.
That and Amazon has their own rules and the ability to report content that break those rules. So it's not like anything can be allowed on the storefront.
I will wait a few weeks to see if I am personal impacted by the changes, I will say not being able to check how my novella's doing can be a bother however.
March 24, 2018
Old Wrting Groups
This is always funny to talk about, but I once belonged to a alright sized writing group a year or two ago. It wasn't bad, and I don't have too many horror stories to tell about them besides a few high strung writers.
More it's a story about how I ended up drifting away from them and going my own route. Not in a too negative way, more that what they thought about writing and how I saw it was very different.
I believed that you should try to make your story or book as best as you possibly can at the moment and sitting on it too long may actually lessen the quality of it.
I have scrapped many stories before, and that's not me being negative, it's more that I ditched them and took pieces and ideas from them to use or simpler or more complex works.
Legends Now and Then was one of them, and while I enjoyed writing that story, even I could see at the moment not only did I like the skill to write something so large. I also needed to look at how I would write it when I went back to it.
However, I am happy I finished it and published it when I did even if I ended up removing it later. Since it acted as a stepping stone to projects.
This was really what caused friction in the group...no one really finished anything. They ended up scrapping and rewriting over and over again, asking people to read from chapter to chapter etc. Before they ended up just ditching the story.
This made it extremely difficult to actually talk about ideas and concepts, combined that with how some people viewed people doing it differently and I just kind of fell out of it.
It pretty much got to the point where being with the group actively hurt both my desire to write and ate up my time not really doing anything.
I wouldn't call them toxic, more that near the end we never talked about writing and I didn't have enough in common outside of that for me to want to continue the relationship.
So I ended up leaving, I don't regret it at all. I ended up meeting a group of friends that while not completely focus on writing like to talk about storytelling etc.
More it's a story about how I ended up drifting away from them and going my own route. Not in a too negative way, more that what they thought about writing and how I saw it was very different.
I believed that you should try to make your story or book as best as you possibly can at the moment and sitting on it too long may actually lessen the quality of it.
I have scrapped many stories before, and that's not me being negative, it's more that I ditched them and took pieces and ideas from them to use or simpler or more complex works.
Legends Now and Then was one of them, and while I enjoyed writing that story, even I could see at the moment not only did I like the skill to write something so large. I also needed to look at how I would write it when I went back to it.
However, I am happy I finished it and published it when I did even if I ended up removing it later. Since it acted as a stepping stone to projects.
This was really what caused friction in the group...no one really finished anything. They ended up scrapping and rewriting over and over again, asking people to read from chapter to chapter etc. Before they ended up just ditching the story.
This made it extremely difficult to actually talk about ideas and concepts, combined that with how some people viewed people doing it differently and I just kind of fell out of it.
It pretty much got to the point where being with the group actively hurt both my desire to write and ate up my time not really doing anything.
I wouldn't call them toxic, more that near the end we never talked about writing and I didn't have enough in common outside of that for me to want to continue the relationship.
So I ended up leaving, I don't regret it at all. I ended up meeting a group of friends that while not completely focus on writing like to talk about storytelling etc.
March 22, 2018
Amazon Author Ranks
Author Ranks have always been somewhat weird to me. I am usually in the top 2000 of my genre, which might sound impressive with the thousands of people publishing and writing.
However it is due to that fact that it means going up in ranks isn't particularly hard. It usually means you just need a couple of hundred page reads, or a few sales to shoot up to a decent rank.
The vast majority of self-publish writers make less than $500 a year off of their work. Even those who manage to find a small publishing company doesn't make that much.
As someone who makes around $1500-1700 a year, that is not a lot of money...at all. Nor is what I make should be considered a lot.
I want to say only those who are around the top 200-300 rankings in their genre probably make enough to reach minimum wage.
Despite that, this is more on stating try not to worry too much about rankings from both a reader and writer perspective. They really only give you a vague understanding on where a writer stands or not.
However it is due to that fact that it means going up in ranks isn't particularly hard. It usually means you just need a couple of hundred page reads, or a few sales to shoot up to a decent rank.
The vast majority of self-publish writers make less than $500 a year off of their work. Even those who manage to find a small publishing company doesn't make that much.
As someone who makes around $1500-1700 a year, that is not a lot of money...at all. Nor is what I make should be considered a lot.
I want to say only those who are around the top 200-300 rankings in their genre probably make enough to reach minimum wage.
Despite that, this is more on stating try not to worry too much about rankings from both a reader and writer perspective. They really only give you a vague understanding on where a writer stands or not.
March 20, 2018
Giving Writing Advice
Despite how much I write, I tend to be terrible at giving writing advice so to say. I have always been terrible unless I am reading the book you have written right in front of me.
So if someone gives me a chapter or their world building notes then I cant really do a lot with it. Since I can only judge a work from a mostly completed state.
This means that someone would have to completely finish a draft of a story before I can really say how I feel about it.
I used to have a lot of problems with that back in my old writing group. Which caused me to not really have a lot to say from chapter to chapter, which is kind of bothersome.
Speaking of writing groups, I may do another blog on one of my old writing groups if I get the chance.
So if someone gives me a chapter or their world building notes then I cant really do a lot with it. Since I can only judge a work from a mostly completed state.
This means that someone would have to completely finish a draft of a story before I can really say how I feel about it.
I used to have a lot of problems with that back in my old writing group. Which caused me to not really have a lot to say from chapter to chapter, which is kind of bothersome.
Speaking of writing groups, I may do another blog on one of my old writing groups if I get the chance.
March 19, 2018
Writing for different Countries
Or rather, my complete inability to do so. I always wanted to write a story maybe sent in France or even Egypt, but never really got the chance to do so. Mostly because I've never been to those places.
I thought about reading information about them online, but I often ask myself could I replicate that feeling just by pictures and descriptions alone?
The reason why the Town of Seesea from Lord of Dusk felt so alive, at least for me was because it was based off my hometown/city.
The places the characters visited and locations were all based on areas where I actually went when I was younger. The Boardwalk, the water tower, the college campus.
All were based on areas I've been to or saw in person.
How would I be able to replicate such a thing for another country?
It's still something I try to think about. Which is probably why I think I'm going to write a road-trip type of story first.
Focus on my own country and the places I have and haven't been to before trying to tackle a story set in a place I haven't been.
I thought about reading information about them online, but I often ask myself could I replicate that feeling just by pictures and descriptions alone?
The reason why the Town of Seesea from Lord of Dusk felt so alive, at least for me was because it was based off my hometown/city.
The places the characters visited and locations were all based on areas where I actually went when I was younger. The Boardwalk, the water tower, the college campus.
All were based on areas I've been to or saw in person.
How would I be able to replicate such a thing for another country?
It's still something I try to think about. Which is probably why I think I'm going to write a road-trip type of story first.
Focus on my own country and the places I have and haven't been to before trying to tackle a story set in a place I haven't been.
March 18, 2018
Being exclusive to Amazon
This has always been a weird thing for me. I never minded being exclusive to amazon, mostly because of how far reaching their marketing is and how simple it is to create a book and cover using their system.
I more bring it up, in the sense that I have thought about branching out to other disturbers, but haven't found a book to do so with yet.
It's always interesting, since I tend to be limited to one product a month, and I may be thinking of changing it up and having two different artist do cover art for different series.
Just so I can have a back-up so I wouldn't be skipping a month when someone is busy etc.
I more bring it up, in the sense that I have thought about branching out to other disturbers, but haven't found a book to do so with yet.
It's always interesting, since I tend to be limited to one product a month, and I may be thinking of changing it up and having two different artist do cover art for different series.
Just so I can have a back-up so I wouldn't be skipping a month when someone is busy etc.
