Well, it's finally happened, I'm cheating on Amazon. At least that's what it feels like. We've been happy together for the past four years, sharing good time and bad, but lately I've been feeling restless, like something is missing from our relationship... and well, the truth is that the big "A" isn't giving me what I need anymore, so they're forcing me to have my needs satisfied elsewhere.

Maybe it's me. Perhaps I've changed from that naïve writer who uploaded her first book in December 2011 and was just thrilled to have people reading her stuff for free. Now I want more. Specifically I really want to recapture that heady feeling I had when both of my books, Hot Property and Kayla's Cowboy Fantasy (Verena Vincent) were actually in the Top 100 Amazon Bestseller List at the same time. (Ok - the top FREE 100). Now my books are so far down on the Amazon charts, the 'free' promotion doesn't even make a blip in my sales. Yup, that's right. I can't even give my books away because the market is saturated with free titles. (Or my books suck...)

So, what's a girl to do? Give up writing entirely? Well, I admit I have slowed down a lot. It's frankly discouraging when you slave away on a book for months, only to have a few people read it. My lack of sales undermined my confidence in a big way last year, mostly due to the timing because my sales were great before I became sick. So, when my next couple of books flopped I began to wonder if chemo had robbed me of my writing ability. Is that possible? Maybe.

I can definitely tell you that writing was WAY easier pre-homicidal breast issues. Before I became ill I could effortlessly write several pages a day. Now I struggle to write a few paragraphs. No wonder it takes me so damn long to get a book out, right? Seriously, I wrote five books in 2012. Now I'm lucky if I write one. I didn't publish a single word in 2015. But 2016 will be different.

Getting back to my infidelity. So, I decided to make some changes in how I distributed my books and finally took the big step and didn't renew my KDP option with Amazon on a few of my books. Open House, Hot Property, The Vampire's Last Virgin & Kayla's Cowboy Fantasy are  now available on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks as well as Amazon. 

What this means is that I no longer give Amazon exclusive rights to these titles. Sounds like a good plan, right? But it also means that I no longer have access to some of their exclusive programs like Free, Countdown and Prime. Unfortunately, these programs don't really seem to be making an impact on my sales anymore so I'm trying to branch out. It's scary but also exciting. I've tried this in the past with a few of my Verena Vincent books but they don't do very well. I'm hoping that will change as I shift more books out of KDP and into other retailers.

I wish I could have made it work with big "A". We had a great thing going for a long time and I'm so grateful for the time we spent together. I would have been content to go along as we were forever, but sadly, we grew apart. As a result, we'll now be exploring an open relationship.