Some big changes

In order of importance, these are the changes I’ve made this morning:

I unpublished most of my books on Amazon. The only two remaining are ‘Miira’ and ‘The Vintage Egg’.I dropped the price on ‘Miira’ to $0.99.I cancelled my Redbubble account.I deleted the link to Redbubble from the sidebar of my blog.

Now, as to why I’ve done all this housekeeping, the answer is simple: my ABN [Australian Business Number] was cancelled due to lack of use. In other words, the government cancelled it due to lack of income. The pension doesn’t count. Getting it back isn’t hard, but I suddenly couldn’t see the point.

Before the pandemic, I was doing some teaching that brought in extra cash, but as the Offspring and I are still in protective self-isolation, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, I can’t see the point of keeping an ABN just so I have to fill in tax forms that declare no income.

And before anyone asks, I’ve only ever had to declare income from Amazon once, meaning I’ve only reached the $100 threshold once. As for Rebubble, the exorbitant price of all the merchandise, plus my complete lack of marketing, means I’ve never earned anything at all.

So, for the time being, I have to accept that I’m more of a hobbyist than anything else, and I don’t want to get into trouble with the tax office, so it just seemed logical to withdraw from sales until I’m ready to actually work at it again. And by that I mean writing and publishing a new book which I then market to the best of my ability.

It will happen, but not soon, hence the housekeeping. I will, however, do the odd freebie on Amazon, which is why I kept ‘Miira’ and ‘The Vintage Egg’. If by some weird and wonderful chance someone reads ‘Miira’ and wants more, I may rethink my position, but for now I just want things to quietly tick over with the minimum of fuss and bother. On the social media front, I will continue to do the things I enjoy the most – i.e. post on my blog and make videos.

I was ready for a change, albeit a small one in real terms. Now, I feel strangely liberated, as if I’ve shed the weight of some old, unrealistic expectations. Feels good.

cheers,
Meeks