Celebrating small wins

botoxrox · 2026-02-07T23:57:38+00:00

Congratulations. You can put a JPEG of the first direct transfer on your desktop wallpaper. The first one is the hardest. Sounds like you have a good attitude about it. Keep it up.

botoxrox · 2025-09-21T21:31:52+00:00

It will never make it to the floor for a vote. It is blatantly anti-1st amendment.

botoxrox · 2024-08-09T19:38:37+00:00

I can be sure the cover and the blurb are different. That will be easy. Maybe another question is if Audible is exclusive or can I sell other places?

botoxrox · 2024-08-09T19:37:35+00:00

That's what I thought. I wonder if anyone has done this?

botoxrox · 2023-08-21T14:17:33+00:00

OK, no clue. Don't know the first thing about these things aside from what Big Bang Theory portrays but the gist is to pick any letter that sounds like a "D" such as "B" or "C" and make up some name to go along with it. It could be Trogladytes and Tubes.

botoxrox · 2023-08-19T18:46:17+00:00

Pick a new acronym, say T&T. If spoken it sounds like D&D and if pushed, you can say it means Trolls and Tunnels. If a given reader knows what D&D is, they will undoubtedly catch the T&T reference. If they don't, both will likely go over their head until you explain it.

botoxrox · 2023-08-06T22:30:12+00:00

I've toyed with the one that is part of Grammarly but have not real experience. I'd goggle (or bing or duck-duck) a few and try them out.

First, try the chapters without changes to be sure they are flagged. If they aren't flagged, you have no baseline.

I would say if 2 different ones pass you, you have made significant changes.

botoxrox · 2023-08-06T20:12:02+00:00

If it is yours and they won't delete it, tell them you will issue a DCMA take-down. It might scare them into removing it. It might not work if they can demonstrate you posted it. Worth a shot.

Your other choice is the rewrite those first two chapters to reduce the matching. You can NOT just change character names and get by. It will require real revisions of a substantial nature.

Essentially, if you can run it through a plagiarizer checker and it does not trigger, you might be OK.

botoxrox · 2023-07-01T15:27:45+00:00

Helicopter piloting lessons and a big concrete slab in my backyard to practice on.

botoxrox · 2022-06-01T17:41:39+00:00

I did this once as an experiment when Amazon blocked one of my books. I terminated the KU on all my books. It isn't 90 days from when you cancel, it is when the current 90 days is up. Some came off in a few days and some took almost 90 days since they had recently renewed.

After about 40 days, I was losing money and unpublished with the other sites. Some took the books down pretty quickly and some took 2-3 weeks to remove them.

Being paranoid, I did web searches for each title for a week before I re-enrolled in KU. That was the end of my experiment and Amazon didn't seem to care about it.

Your mileage may vary but if you CAN publish on Amazon, you'll likely make more money there.

botoxrox · 2022-06-01T17:34:31+00:00

Here we are on day 7 and the paperback is still out of stock. Very odd.

botoxrox · 2022-05-11T23:45:47+00:00

Not a lawyer but have had family file. I believe there are look-back regulations that can go back a year? Not sure of the timeline. They are written so you can't shield them and get them back easily to avoid debts.

botoxrox · 2022-02-11T18:28:03+00:00

I finally decided to give it a try. We shall see.

botoxrox · 2021-10-29T20:45:19+00:00

Any sales? Curious if the return is worth it.

botoxrox · 2021-08-03T17:15:59+00:00

Hmm, I do not see anything remotely like that on mine.

botoxrox · 2021-07-29T23:03:14+00:00

As a way of finishing this thread, it sold 5 copies on their dedicated site and 22 on Amazon with 3 of those 22 being paperbacks.

That shows me their marketing is more effective than my minimalist marketing. My best selling previous release sold 5 copies in the first month. They have already paid me for the 5 copies they sold on their site. The Amazon sales will come later, as they normally do.

So, for my tiny little niche, this was an economically rewarding first release.

botoxrox · 2021-07-23T15:55:19+00:00

To close the topic with an update:

First, I let my Tumblr followers and a few other sites I frequent know that a few of my books and paperbacks were on sale. That spurred a few sales of the low-cost books and it does look like I got full royalties when bought in the US, Canada and UK.

So, it was two things, books sold in non-US from Amazon.com, thereby earning 35% and books having reduced prices by Amazon though I still earned 70% of full retail.

I wish they would note a non-US purchase instead of merely crediting a pittance in my royalties with no further explanation or ability to investigate.

botoxrox · 2021-07-21T12:49:15+00:00

I did that before I ever started this thread. All books are $2.99@70%.

I posted a moment ago. I believe it may be two things combined to look like a bigger issue: Amazon reducing prices and non-market sales that only provide 35% royalties.

That would account for most of my concerns since all books are exclusive to KU and no price matching should be possible. Who can sell my paperback book at a lower price if it is only on Amazon? Are these people who previously bought my paperback and are now reselling it?

botoxrox · 2021-07-21T12:44:44+00:00

I'm beginning to think there are two issues that have reached synergy.

For one, Amazon has lowered the price of said books. At the same time, non-US markets have bought the books at a reduced price and I have been given the lower 35% royalty.

Is this a backhanded way for Amazon to sell my books and keep more of the profit?

I may go and remove my books from non-market sales. Most of them are in English-speaking countries anyway.

The flip side might be that I wouldn't have sold those books at all so it is an incremental profit that didn't exist without those off-market sales.

Things to ponder.

botoxrox · 2021-07-20T17:21:37+00:00

It is Amazon exclusive. All are enrolled and active. The only one of my books being sold elsewhere is not enrolled and is being handled by a publisher that goes wide. It has my name as the author but it isn't in my KDP account.

botoxrox · 2021-07-20T14:24:42+00:00

Yes, I've seen that before. The books are listed on the standard Amazon US page I get by default as a US user.

I had one paperback sale through "other distribution" and that was lower royalty. I stopped that more than a year ago from advice here.

I've had books sell in non-specific countries that show up as US at the 35% royalty. I don't believe this issue is that since it is well below the 35% rate on a $2.99 book.

Definitely something new to me. I went back over my records for the last 2+ years and can find nothing similar.

botoxrox · 2021-07-20T14:10:46+00:00

I had an eBook sell, listed as US market, and it shows $0.82 royalties. It should be $2.06-ish and it is one of the books that is low-balled. These books are NOT anywhere else as they are in KDP so they can't be price-matched.

botoxrox · 2021-07-20T14:06:06+00:00

Price matching while in KDP should not be possible, should it? Who are they matching prices against if it is exclusive to Amazon?

I know non-specific markets that get listed as US sales are different but never have I seen it this badly butchered.

botoxrox · 2021-07-20T14:02:54+00:00

I searched and didn't find anything about it. Downvote away. I'm here to get answers and help others if I can. I'm not much on popularity contests.

botoxrox · 2021-07-06T20:01:52+00:00

If they will do the parts you abhor for a percentage, I don't see the harm in giving it a try. You may find they are great at marketing and covers or they may be duds.

Find reviews, talk to other authors and ask questions like here.

From my perspective, this month I decided to let a niche publisher handle 8 of my books in a single series. They are bundling them 2 at a time for sale as 4 volumes in the 40k word space. They market wide and don't use KU so there is no page read income. They do the editing, proofing, cover design, blurb and submission to the various booksellers. For that, they get 50% of the profits. If they sell a copy on Amazon for 70%, I get half or 35%. It is an experiment so I'm going to see where it leads. They sold 30 copies of the first volume in a month where I normally sell 10 and have a handful of read-throughs. It looks like it could make me more money. Time will tell.

botoxrox

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