R.L.’s Comments (group member since Jan 07, 2017)

R.L.’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Thanks guys. The voting has been insane. Killed the battery lol

So our bookstore contest is literally blowing up. My phone chimes each time there is a visitor and for the last 3 hours every second someone is on the site, voting and exploring even joining the forum over there. There is also a one vote per day, per IP so these are not repeat people.

This is happening because bookstores are telling readers to vote for them. Imagine if all the authors who were featured, encouraged readers to engage and share their stories in magazine? There’d be zero need for us to rely solely on Amazon for exposure and this proves it. Don’t lose hope!

Lol Alexis

Waiting on “Veni” Alexis! Lol

Lol! If she asks for money, PLEASE drag it out until it becomes ridiculous. Waste as much of her time as you can so that’s less time she has to scam someone else.

Lol I won’t go that far but at least if authors point readers to a place where they will get ALL their money and not be hidden I think they have a shot at maybe being able to pay some bills at the least.

That was the initial plan so the 100% will be for 4 months so indies can try and gain as many sales and we can build up the store. After that we will Segway into a 90/10 split. Great minds Alex!

Yup. Most the books in the top spot are Amazon imprints. I wrote an article yesterday about all of this and my point was what Denise said above. It doesn’t matter how big their store is, if we’re invisible in it. Starting Feb we’re selling ebooks from the magazine site. 100% royalties direct to author. To ensure this you’d need to create a paypal button code and submit when submitting your books. This way even we aren’t the middle man. Indies need a break off the roller coaster ride for a while

Thanks guys. Only trying to do what we promised to. Put indies first.

I know how frustrating it is @Alex. We will make it through. We just have to be brave. Lol @Carole I m creating a book review database on the website so we can have a place people can search for and review books there too. Lots coming up in 2018.

You can’t feel defeated like that. We don’t need someone to swoop in and save us. We need to stand tall and scream at the top of our lungs that were important and demand to be treated as such.

We have the power to do whatever the hell we want. It’s the reason we’re indies in the first place. We said that no matter the obstacles we faced, we were going to publish our stuff and put it out in the world. We can’t tuck tail and hide because they’re too big. If every single indie removes their books, guess how worthwhile kindles would be to consumers. They’d basically be fancy paperweights. Without us fueling their bottom line, they have nothing.

We can be fighters and dreamers or we can get mowed down and be silenced. I won’t go down without fighting to the death and I hope no one else will either.

I know how u feel Theo. But they’ve done that to several authors. I hadn’t followed the story much after due to school so not sure if it got sorted, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Taken from a group I’m in on Facebook. Oct 20th:

Two days ago I posted about the success I had with a recent Bookbub featured deal for a box set in my shared world Veil Knights setting. I was thrilled that the book had reached #97 in the Amazon store, solely through the Bookbub offer.

Amazon, apparently, was not.

On the morning after the Bookbub feature, I discovered that Amazon had stripped the book of sales rank. An hour later they stripped the author rank from the pen name. Half an hour after that, the book disappeared from all of the bestseller lists that it had landed on as a result of the feature.

In short, Amazon punished us for having a successful promotion.

The only promotion we did for this box set was the Bookbub featured deal. We did not swap newsletters, we did not advertise on any other sites, we did not run facebook ads - nothing but Bookbub.

Think about the implications of that for a moment.

The authors involved in the shared world project are all New York Times, USA Today and Amazon bestselling writers. They are all professionals and they take this business very seriously. To use a legitimate service and have our ability to sell the featured book stripped without notice or warning, for no wrong other than succeeding in a successful sale, is infuriating and wrong on so many levels.

It is. It’s all authors have been talking about on Facebook for months. If your book gets a sudden jolt from Bookbub they’re shutting you down in suspicion of click farming. And now some are afraid to use Bookbub and other services because if it. It seems they’re trying to reign in the scams but are collecting tons of authors doing it the right way in the wake

They are more than just stripping ranking. They have also closed down Author accounts and kept the royalties generated from Bookbub and other promo sites. There is hope but we as indies have to fight harder than ever before.

I agree Justin. It’s unfair all around

What Theo said

Congrats Amy!!!

That’s garbage. I’ve never seen you state or imply anything like this...jeez

My grrrr...Just had to cancel my preorders and unpublished it. There were a lot to my surprise which was so inspiring and appreciated, but with editing not being done fast enough, delays at every turn, and life in general just kicking my ass, I had to cancel it rather than disappoint people who were waiting with a crappy rushed book. Done with 2017, 2018 has to be better. Grrrrrr