(Let's face it, if I had tried to address everything wrong with this post in one go, I would die of a brain aneurism or something.)
Today I would like to point out that stealing is wrong!
Now obviously this special little cuntcake has found a fairly successful way to game the system and she has generously *rolls eyes* shared that method here. I would advise against utilizing this method, not just because it is morally reprehensible but also because my day job happens to be at one of amazon's corporate sites and I know where the fraud department is. And you can bet your sweet ass that I went out of my way to bring this to their attention. They'll figure something out for it eventually and even though it may not be today, tomorrow or next week, it'll be someday and when 'someday' arrives, they'll make it hurt in a legal sense. Amazonians are smart. A lot smarter than her... It's just a matter of time.
I digress...
What I intended to do with this post was look at some numbers and inject a little common sense into the equation. (I hate doing maths or anything number related really, and now I have had to do it two days in a row. If this bitch were on fire I wouldn't piss on her to put her out at this point.)
It's no big secret how KDP (That's Kindle Direct Publishing) operates. You finish your literary masterpiece, you go through KDP's step by step and then you hit the pricing and royalties page where you have a couple of options in front of you.
You can either select the 35% or 70% royalty option. (Meaning either 35 or 70% of the book's sale goes to the author, just being clear.)
In order to select the 70% royalty option you have to price your book at $2.99 or higher. My MC books are $3.99 which nets me about $2.74 per copy. So we'll go with that.
For an indie author just starting out, if you're lucky you'll make something like $20.00 your first month. Maybe more if you hit the right genre with a bunch of rabid readers, but considering you've easily poured a few hundred bucks into getting your novel up off the ground in the first place? Yeah. You're still under water. At least that was how it was for me until Shattered & Scarred.
My best month up until I wrote my first MC romance was around $100.00 and I was excited because when I put Shattered & Scarred out? I had finally caught up to and broken even with the expense of putting it out, along with the few PNR's and one contemporary novella that had come before. By then I had been self-published for five months.
This is what it's like for most indies, so to read that someone is knowingly stealing from independent authors and advising other people to do the same?
I has no words.
This crazy person is openly admitting that she is purchasing books, getting all of the enjoyment out of them and then returning them, cheating the author, who slaved, pouring their hearts into their work, out of the miniscule reward that quite frankly isn't really enough compensation anyways - and for what?
You don't go to the movies, sit through the entire film and get your money back after the credits do you? Why should you when it comes to a book?
This isn't the first time I have said it and it won't be my last: When it comes to being an author, it feels like it is the only profession out there where it is almost required that you be some kind of masochist. I mean look at us. We pour our heart and soul onto a page, wear our hearts on our sleeves and for what? We get bashed in negative reviews, we get crazy people who don't like our books and so they go on a mission to "ruin" us by attacking any good reviews of our books and who will follow us from social media platform to social media platform screaming at us and anyone who will listen about how awful our books are but yet we aren't allowed to comment. Nope. We are expected to not only endure some heinous abuse, we're expected to write more. To pour more of ourselves onto the page for people to do it all over again and when any of us cracks, has a moment where we sigh and admit out loud "God that hurts..." we're attacked again and told we either need to grow a thicker skin or get out of the business and now this.
But nope, according to twatwaffle up there, authors are abusing their readers! We are awful and deserve to be punished! ...and you wonder why some really good writers quit writing.
She suggests that readers use their buying power to show authors that readers are fed up and deserve better. What are you going to do when the writers use their powers? You know, the one that says 'fuck it, I'm not finishing this series' or they finish, but just choose not to publish it?
Who's loss is it then?
Certainly not the author's. Just saying.
Might want to think about that.
Now me personally, I love my readers. And as long as I have at least one person message me and tell me, that my book did something for them, made them feel, got them through a tough day by providing an escape... that's enough for me. When I first started this I never in a million years thought I would make any actual money at it. At best I was hoping that I would make enough to cover the cost of my first book and then enough to launch a second. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would need this much help, or require a Street Team or that I would end up doing collaborative projects or that people would actually pay attention to my ravings on this blog.
I still maintain, you hate my book that damned much - return it... but this? Mm-mm. No. Just no. This just makes me angry and sad. Now I've ranted about it, I feel better and I have something like 13 books on deck to write so I gotta go. I wash my hands of this mess. My opinion is known. Time to move on and create something positive.
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