The best read-only site closed for the holidays, November and December both, saying if they get enough members they'll open up again. I was a little disappointed and decided I couldn't wait until the new year to market my books.
So I started my own site, Authors' Read-Only Trains which you can see. Please join me. I need active members and I need other people to be on there besides me. Right now I have five books on five trains.
Read-only trains keep you insulated from the hassle of reviews, and also the against-the-rules nature of review site activity. It's only against Amazon rules if two people review each other's, or if you review your friend's, or if you're a writer. Unfortunately all of these are true for all of these sites, it seems. And I'd rather just avoid the whole mess. Let the reviews come when they come.
Because Amazon's algorithms now know who is your friend and who is not, they are becoming more aggressive about flagging and removing reviews done by friends for friends. This is a problem since a lot of my friends are writers, and generally I like my friends' work. That's why they're my friends. It puts me in a pickle with Amazon.
But I'd rather not even think about it, and I feel like there's nothing wrong with letting the reviews gather as they gather. There's nothing especially wrong with a book that has no reviews, or has only a few. So what? It doesn't take away from what the book is, what it does, what's good about it. In the end I'm willing to wait for reviews.
But reads, that's a different story. Anytime I can get anybody to read anything of mine, that's good.
Monday, October 30, 2023
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Monday, October 9, 2023
This is one of those days when things aren't going so well and I'm complaining about the whole racket. I sit and watch my "dashboard" and nothing comes in. They don't want to read or buy my work? What's the problem?
One problem is that I'm checking it too much. Another is that I'm not actively creating something, which sometimes can take my eyes off of it for a few hours at a time. Finally, I'm full up on things to read so can't actually go out and create new reads myself by reading more, and if they aren't just coming out of nowhere to read my stuff then there just isn't going to be anything up there happening.
All of that is a little depressing. A Monday of reading a wide range of things, whatever I can handle, and trying to attend to other business, and coming back to find it all very slow on my own board. But I am making progress, albeit slow; I'm doing better this year than I was doing at this time last year; I can feel the progress and on some level it gives me encouragement to keep on going.
One thing that's discouraging is when the reading I am doing is difficult. Sometimes it's difficult because it's written in a literary way, with long sentences that require work to figure out. Sometimes it's difficult because it's just a little too shallow, or silly, or unbelievable. I have a vampire one right now that qualifies; I don't mind believing in vampires in the course of a book, but if their conversation is banal what's the benefit of living forever? I have one book that I would call modernist. I have trouble making sense of it. And I don't really like that; if I'm working to figure out what's going on, how am I supposed to enjoy the action? You can't do both at once.
br> Why not put it down and do my own writing? Well, I have John the Younger being born in Boston in 1662; somehow I'm stuck on that, right around the time of his birth (it's a matter of organization). Then there are the Disney stories; I have to read a bit to get the hang of Disney, but it's worth it. And I have half a dozen other projects, half-done. I should be able to do something. But I'm not.
A few other things hang over my head. I'm typing a son's novel. I'm making Quaker pamphlets and having printer problems. I'm getting the house ready for winter, I hope.
Mostly not. I've just had a bit of an earache and was in just enough pain to not even enjoy indie writing.
One problem is that I'm checking it too much. Another is that I'm not actively creating something, which sometimes can take my eyes off of it for a few hours at a time. Finally, I'm full up on things to read so can't actually go out and create new reads myself by reading more, and if they aren't just coming out of nowhere to read my stuff then there just isn't going to be anything up there happening.
All of that is a little depressing. A Monday of reading a wide range of things, whatever I can handle, and trying to attend to other business, and coming back to find it all very slow on my own board. But I am making progress, albeit slow; I'm doing better this year than I was doing at this time last year; I can feel the progress and on some level it gives me encouragement to keep on going.
One thing that's discouraging is when the reading I am doing is difficult. Sometimes it's difficult because it's written in a literary way, with long sentences that require work to figure out. Sometimes it's difficult because it's just a little too shallow, or silly, or unbelievable. I have a vampire one right now that qualifies; I don't mind believing in vampires in the course of a book, but if their conversation is banal what's the benefit of living forever? I have one book that I would call modernist. I have trouble making sense of it. And I don't really like that; if I'm working to figure out what's going on, how am I supposed to enjoy the action? You can't do both at once.
br> Why not put it down and do my own writing? Well, I have John the Younger being born in Boston in 1662; somehow I'm stuck on that, right around the time of his birth (it's a matter of organization). Then there are the Disney stories; I have to read a bit to get the hang of Disney, but it's worth it. And I have half a dozen other projects, half-done. I should be able to do something. But I'm not.
A few other things hang over my head. I'm typing a son's novel. I'm making Quaker pamphlets and having printer problems. I'm getting the house ready for winter, I hope.
Mostly not. I've just had a bit of an earache and was in just enough pain to not even enjoy indie writing.
Sunday, October 1, 2023
The day my rating went over a cliff
I checked one day on my crime book, A Dozen Crime Stories from a well-known, big box, discount, retail chain, and it had gone over a cliff: from about five million to eleven million, overnight. I panicked! What's up with this? It took me a while but I figured it out.
That's one of my older books; early, inspired, relatively short. Once I took it and sold it on consignment at a LUbbock bookstore, and someone stole it; I never got my money. What could one do? Stop selling books on consignment. It complicated my life too much.
But the answer to my question was this: it was an old book, maybe ten years old, and had just gone over that mark. A lot of its sales had happened immediately after I produced it, and I myself bought quite a few of them. So all those sales went over a line where they weren't counted anymore, after ten years. If your book doesn't have enough sales in the last ten years, it has a rating like eleven million.
The thing is, as an author, you live in fear that some demon in the heart of Amazon is just there to punish you, and tack six million onto your rating just because you have the audacity to keep cranking out books like that. Nobody at Amazon has reached out to give me punishing threats or anything like that. I've been lucky. They consider themselves lucky to have me exclusively, too. It's odd, but the chances they've had to punish me or come after me, or suspend my account, they haven't. I'm grateful and try not to break their rules.
A cliff is just a cliff. All you can do is sell a few more books, and, if necessary, to yourself.
That's one of my older books; early, inspired, relatively short. Once I took it and sold it on consignment at a LUbbock bookstore, and someone stole it; I never got my money. What could one do? Stop selling books on consignment. It complicated my life too much.
But the answer to my question was this: it was an old book, maybe ten years old, and had just gone over that mark. A lot of its sales had happened immediately after I produced it, and I myself bought quite a few of them. So all those sales went over a line where they weren't counted anymore, after ten years. If your book doesn't have enough sales in the last ten years, it has a rating like eleven million.
The thing is, as an author, you live in fear that some demon in the heart of Amazon is just there to punish you, and tack six million onto your rating just because you have the audacity to keep cranking out books like that. Nobody at Amazon has reached out to give me punishing threats or anything like that. I've been lucky. They consider themselves lucky to have me exclusively, too. It's odd, but the chances they've had to punish me or come after me, or suspend my account, they haven't. I'm grateful and try not to break their rules.
A cliff is just a cliff. All you can do is sell a few more books, and, if necessary, to yourself.
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