Book Series

After I have written over a hundred books, I still don’t understand why anyone would want to promote a book of mine in the middle of a series or even read books in the middle of the series. I would think everyone would want to promote the first book in the series and also start reading from the first book in the series before going on to the other books within the same series.

Publishing is a strange business and it has changed from the time I got into it in March 2003 to now. I’m sure it will continue to change. I used to publish directly to different retailers, but that became tedious. I did used to have an account for Amazon, but I find they have too many rules and it was hard to publish books within series.

Then I was introduced to Smashwords and learned I could just upload my books once and they would be distributed to pretty much everywhere else. That was a relief. Another thing was that Smashwords makes it easy to publish books within the series they belong in.

To date, I have completed 9 book series and I have learned that there’s at least one website who claims I don’t write in series. They also have my first published book wrong. They claim the first book to be The Strange & Unusual Universe of Silver Moon Unicorn. That’s technically the third published book.

I have a spreadsheet with all the book titles so I can keep track of them all and know how many books I have and how many book series I have. After doing all of this, I still don’t understand why anyone would think I just write stand alone books. Even when I point out to them politely that is not the case, they ignore me. I take it they do not care to get the correct information and think they can trust Amazon on whatever it claims about me.

If my listing is wrong, I find it hard to believe they got the other writers’ listings correct. Unfortunately, Amazon is riddled with technical problems that they never seem to take care of. As they are unwilling to do what they need to do to clean up their mess and they have also made it clear they don’t care if we, the writers, get to eat, then I will not deal with them directly. I need a buffer between myself and Amazon. They are too frustrating for me to deal with.

Currently, I use Draft2Digital and they will distribute to Amazon for me. If a book doesn’t fit Amazon’s requirements, I will know right away. I have noticed they should have all the print books, but a few don’t show up because Amazon has trouble with the ISBNs. Draft2Digital has assured me they are working with Amazon to fix the problem. I’m not worried. I’m just disappointed with Amazon that they have all those technical problems and have the audacity to put more restrictions on writers.

I do wish people would stop spreading misinformation and check the facts before making claims. My personal website is far more accurate than Amazon is when it comes to information on my books. I do my best to keep it updated.