It’s been awhile ~ let’s catch up!

It’s been a while. The reason for not blogging for so long isn’t because I don’t have anything to report, it’s actually the opposite. So much seems to be happening so fast that I’ve felt a bit overwhelmed.

So let me catch you up in bullet points.

We got home from Mexico after a three month stay at the beginning of April.Jordan and Chelsea, after a tumultuous year (click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about), finally had their Wedding reception party – so fun! Following that was a family reunion on my father’s side.My shoulder pain kept getting worse – turns out I need a full shoulder replacement! Advanced osteoarthritis with two serious rotator cuff tears. It will probably be several months before this can happen, so I’m using my non-dominant hand a lot more, even playing left-handed pickleball. I’ve taken up bass guitar, lol. Something I can do, despite my shoulder issue. Norm and I have started a folk duo called Mr.& Mrs. Strauss. If you’re interesting is hearing us play our version of Paperback Writer, click here.News about Amazon and pricing. Inflation is kicking us in the butt everywhere, including Amazon for both authors and readers. Print pricing has gone up which has forced many authors, including me, to raise prices on paperback books. I try to keep my prices as low as possible, but I still need to make a little something, which at the moment is closer to the $1 dollar per book than the usual $2.00 per book (which still isn’t very much.) Which leads me to the next point.Independent publishing has gone through a lot of changes since it first became an option for authors in 2010 with the advent of Kindle. A new opportunity has risen with Shopify coming onto the scene, making it possible for artists and creators to sell their products directly to their customers. This allows the creator to have more control with pricing, and also what they can offer in terms of specialty products and discounts. As you can see from the previous point, the retailers keep a lot of the profit. Having complete dependence on the whims of any given retailer is also not a great business practice as a single wrong move by a bot can destroy an author’s hard work and earnings in a moment. I’m not being dramatic here. This has happened to authors more often than I’m comfortable with seeing. All this to say, I am working on setting up a sell-to-readers-directly option (don’t worry, you’ll still be able to buy on Amazon if you wish, but also some of my books will become available on other retailers as well). I hope to have launched by the end of summer, so stay tuned!I'm working on a very cool Special Edition book that I know you’ll love. It’s too early to say more but keep watch.

 Whew! That’s a lot. I’m going to try to blog more often and stay on top of the news. My next blog will be a poll to let me know what kind of content you’d like to see here. See you then.

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