Letting it Go

Stalled before I start Friday Fun: Cookie Monster wants you ...

Letting it Go

My personal philosophy is to just let things go. There are few things I get worked up about. Not throwing stuff away ranks high on my list of things to get worked up about. It can be a big issue in my relationship. My husband would just rather throw stuff out. I’d rather donate it, give it to someone or sell it.

This has been my philosophy when it comes to publishing as well.

Right now I have a review for my book Love Can’t Wait on Amazon KDP that says the book is horribly edited. It says words are missing, the book needs to be spell checked. I panicked because this book was professionally edited. I formatted it and I’ve looked at it (not on a Kindle because I do not have one) on my tablet. It looks fine to me.

When I read the review I panicked. I opened the file and ran a spell check. I was going to comment back, because I think it’s a formatting issue. I don’t know. I decided to just let it go. I don’t know if it’s the right or wrong thing to do. The other review is positive. If there were several comments on the formatting problem, I’d reformat and re upload. (If anyone has read the book and notices similar problems please comment here or email at asrai.rd@ gmail.com).

I also noticed that despite my price being changed EVERYWHERE my book, Complications Over Coffee, is sold to 2.99, Amazon has it discounted to 2.99. Annoying? yes. Worth my time to email them? Maybe. Worth their time? Not likely. I checked ALL my others sales channels, it’s 2.99. I don’t know where else it’s discounted. I’ll watch it for right now, if it doesn’t go up, I’ll ask where their data is coming from.

The last thing I’m forced to let go but is really irritating me is Smashwords distribution lag. Any book that’s distributed already goes up fairly quickly. But my last two releases Love Can’t Wait and When Love Knocks claim to have been distributed the last three weeks. They are not up on Barnes and Noble, Apple (Apple doesn’t have Second Chance Romance either) or Sony. The latter two aren’t a big deal, I don’t sell much on either. But I sell a lot of books on B&N this delay is costing me tons of sales. TONS and therefore Smashwords is losing out as well. I have people waiting for it.

I wrote Smashwords an email, but they say they have a backlog for service help. They are hiring more staff it says, but expect to wait 2 weeks to hear from them. I told them I didn’t expect to hear back, but that I wanted my frustration noted. I’ve heard of people waiting 4 months for distribution. Frustrating. Especially if you are a non-US resident, Barnes and Noble won’t let you in without Smashwords.

I love all that Smashwords has done and I’m not going to abandon them during these growing pains.

All of this reminds me that I need to write a letter to the editor of my local paper telling him that I’m thankful he doesn’t get to make the laws on abortion. (I’m very pro-choice and if that alienates you- GOOD. One woman, one brain, one choice what to do with it.).