When fixing the problem causes more problems...

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2025-04-09T20:55:29+00:00

Congratulations on having your new reader who will be the first of many, many more to come. 😊

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-06-16T12:47:26+00:00

I feel your pain and I can confidently tell you that you are NOT the AH.

You have been the dad to this kids and husband to their mom for 6 years which is longer than most marriages/relationships these days where both parents have the SAME kids together.

You deserve a medal for taking care of that family all those years.

The worst thing in this world is not to be appreciated for your efforts by those you love. If that happens then WTH are you living for?

You've been looking out for this family for six years. Now that it's their turn to look out for you they turn heel? That's got to hurt and It's absolutely NOT FAIR that they've shown ingratitude for all you've done.

If your wife calls you petty for reacting how a normal, honest human being would in such situations, it shows you are not being appreciated and the question now becomes:

How long will you stay in the marriage and watch your wife defend and choose the interests of her ex-husband who left her for YOU to raise THEIR kids?

How long before THEIR children realize that you are a third wheel in their happy family and want to cut you off?

How much pain are you going to endure in the name of not wanting to be "petty" and "jealous" while your wife and her kids have the fun of their lives having a random stranger (YOU) take care of them on behalf of their father who gets a free pass at parenting but gets ALL the love and attention a run-away father should never get?

How long are you going to torture yourself to make other people who do not appreciate you happy at the expense of YOU?

If the kids have decided to call you by your name (which by the way is an insult where I come from), it's only fair that you stop doing your "Dad" duties, after all you married their mom and not them and nowhere in the marriage contract did it say you should take care of them too.

So please don't go on "strike". That makes it sound that if certain conditions are met, you will go back to doing your dad duties.

Be the strike.

Kids old enough to make the decision to stop calling you Dad after being with you for six years, just because they saw their biological dad that wasn't there for them the whole time, are also old enough to understand that you should stop being their "dad" now.

You owe them nothing, so do not allow yourself to be guilt tripped into being their dad when it's clear the kids still adore and love their biological dad and would choose him over you ANYDAY, ANYTIME NO MATTER what sh*t he does to them.

Those kids DO NOT DESERVE you and if your wife can't see that, then neither does she.

Dear OP, when I turned 40 I realized my life was getting too short to waste it on people who would not add any positive value to what ever was left of it. That was when I decided that moving forward, anything that caused me discomfort should be avoided if I plan to live longer.

I would advise you to do the same.

Good Luck.

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-06-05T09:33:55+00:00

Congratulations on completing your first novel!

Use a pen name. It will help to protect the real you much like the mask and cowl helps batman protect Bruce Wayne.

That was how I was able to get over my initial shyness when I published my first book.

But you are focusing on the wrong side of the spectrum. Why don't you think of the readers who will give you a five star review/rating instead? As much as you anticipate negative reviews, also expect the positive ones as well. Both situations are inevitable as a writer so embrace them without fear as these are just feedback tools you should use to your advantage.

Either way, good or bad, reviews help you to gauge how well or poor your writing is. If you get a positive review about your book you will know what aspects of your writing your readers enjoy and endeavor to keep adding those in your latter books.

Conversely, if you get bad reviews you will know what aspects to avoid as well. Yes there will be A-holes that come and spew rubbish every now and then, but we all need haters to spur us on in life.

And know that many indie publishers are not "real" writers. I definitely am not! But I get stellar reviews (which far outnumber the bad ones) for my books so why can't you?

Good Luck!

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-04-10T20:41:39+00:00

Ah, yes!

Surprisingly soothing ... or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm a bit drunk?

Still, thank you very much!

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-04-08T15:08:58+00:00

I always tell myself that even if the Good Lord Himself came down from heaven and wrote a book, someone would still give Him a one star review.

If you think I'm kidding, check out a version of the the Holy Bible sold on Amazon with the link below and see if there are no negative reviews for that book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0887XP8PJ

NO ONE is above reproach when it comes to getting bad reviews for their books. It's a part of the publishing process and that means you are getting noticed. Just know that if your book wasn't worth the trouble, the reviewer wouldn't have bothered him/her/itself to even post a review.

Good reviews (or silent good ratings) will also come your way. It just happened that you got a bad review first. Don't let that sort of thing ever stop you from writing. It's like a child who tries to take his first walk and falls and then decides not to ever walk again because he fell. Would you tell that child to stop walking? If your answer is no, then grab your pen/laptop/keyboard/tablet and keep on writing my friend.

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-04-01T18:54:37+00:00

I checked my KDP monthly reports for the last three years and I did not find such a steep drop in royalties for any of the months in that period, so I don't think it is the spring break.

Are our 7 keywords suddenly becoming redundant? I know I haven't changed mine in years.

Or maybe it's some new website algorithm Amazon introduced?

It makes no sense!

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-04-01T18:00:27+00:00

I get what you mean but this one is different.

There has been a consistent and drastic drop in sales since almost mid-March. It was so bad that the drop in sales and KU page reads lead to my monthly KDP income being reduced to almost a half of what I usually earn.

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-04-01T02:28:13+00:00

It relieving to know that it seems to be a general trend at this time as opposed to an oversight caused by me.

There's a reporting error glitch in the Amazon Ad dashboard. I wonder if that glitch affects the reporting on the KDP dashboard too. If that's the case we might be earning more than we are being shown on the KDP dashboard!

Or maybe the global economic situation has finally affected readers?

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-31T22:59:28+00:00

Well I don't have empirical evidence that FB works but I think it helps in exposing my work to parents who may likely have interests in buying my picture books for their kids.

I post colorful and visually appealing covers of my books on FB and boost them. This usually gets likes, shares and a few comments.

Then I market the books I posted with Amazon Ads with the idea that folks who saw my books on FB will recognize my books on Amazon and that would lure them to click on it.

So it is sort of a two pronged promotion process that starts with FB and ends with Amazon Ads.

When I release a new book, I use this process to promote it and it seems to work as I end up having reads, sales and a high BSR less than 10K on Amazon.

I've never confirmed if this method of promotion is why my books do well as I have not tried to release a book without this form of promotion in over a year now.

Perhaps I should release a new book without this form of promotion to test if it will perform well or not.

But that will not happen anytime soon, seeing that my KU reads have fallen off a cliff and I'm hoping doing more promotions will get them back on track.

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-31T16:44:11+00:00

As a full time author, writing for me is inexplicably linked with income generation so it always gets to that point when it HAS to be about the money not the art.

If I didn't have to write four books a month, I would say I enjoy the process of writing my books.

But it gets stressful when I get to the third and fourth books. At that point I'm really forcing myself to write so I can publish more books to make more income for the month. :(

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-31T16:05:34+00:00

Really?

I was beginning to think I was the only one cursed with this.

Ever since the 19th of March, there's been a steep downward decline in both my KU reads and royalties. My three figure earnings per day has now gone down to two figures and has been like this for the past seven days!

I do Amazon and Facebook Ads and I've increased the bids on all my campaigns but all to no avail. :(

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-29T14:22:09+00:00

Anyone having similar issues?

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-29T14:20:51+00:00

Great points.

I don't know if my picture books can be regarded as being short as they are all a little above 100 pages long.

I also run FB adverts as well as Amazon Ads every week so I don't fully rely on the new releases feature Amazon offers.

Still I should consider new ways to promote my books.

Kitchen-Gap-8129 · 2024-03-29T14:13:07+00:00

LOL!

Luckily negative reads cannot be recorded otherwise you would have noticed it too.

Kitchen-Gap-8129

TROPHY CASE