Indie Only - YA, MG & Kids and Short Stories discussion

The world of self-publishing has its ups and downs. The downs suck. So here is a place where we can go off about the things that make us crazy in this industry.
The things that infuriate me lately:
1.) Amazon is the devil
2.) Print on demand royalties are a joke. I've done all the work and I get what now?
3.) Bad indie books by authors who don't even try
4.) AND...what is up with GoodReads minimum advertising (you know the pretty ads) starting at $5,000 per MONTH?

Thanks for the idea, Bill!

You're welcome.

1.) KDP Select is a scam. I am getting 0% of their 80% of the e-book market.
2.) I want a famous author to take me by the hand, give me their emailing list, blog about me and guerrilla market my book in supermarket parking lots. I want it now.
3.) Why would the word "firetruck" appear twice in every sentence of your story? Why would you think that's Ok? The story isn't even about firetrucks. No. Stop it.

I'm about to pull out of kindle select, the royalty I'm getting for the amount of books I'm giving away is ridiculous.
Ditto on your second point, I'll take that with fries please ;)
And your number three hits my biggest pet peeve! I just edited a book where everything was massive and it was always Tuesday.

I only published my first book last month, so I can't comment on the Kindle Select royalties yet. I've had as many borrows as sales, so I am waiting with baited breath (or something).

1.) Definitely agree with your second point Bill. There MUST be some famous person out there would find my book so amazing they'd scream from the housetops about it. Where are you?!
2.) Why do you insist on starting every sentence with "He"? Seriously, I read one book - okay I only managed the first three pages - where I counted and 80% of sentences began, "He...". Did you read it back to yourself? Did you bother with an editor?
3.) Patronising authors who are traditionally published. Listen, I have CHOSEN to go down the self-pub route - didn't even bother trying an agent or publisher. Honestly, why would I?
4.) All those countless numbers of predators who sell their wares on "How to sell books" to the self-pub market. Yes, even some big-name ones. Just stop saying, "I'm doing this because I want you to be successful" will you? You're doing it because you know a lot of indie authors are desperate and will naively believe you have the answer.

Hi Jeff,
Welcome to the fabulous world of self publishing!
I spent a lot of time on my first novel and I attempted the route of the traditional publishing deal...for about five minutes. I was so completely disgusted by the process of jumping through hoops and so much red tape just to get someone to look at my 300 word blurb that I quickly decided it was not for me. I have a "friend" who has a "real" publishing deal with a very small press. She is very proud of that fact. But guess what! She does everything I do for my book but she has zero control over it once the manuscript left her hands. (and her ebook is outrageously expensive! Who pays over $10 for an ebook???) Her physical book? Create Space POD and it's almost $20! I just don't see the point of traditional publishing, especially with a small press.

And your number 4! I just can't handle all the gimmicks out there!
I read a quote recently from an established author. She said to ignore all the noise and all the panic about promoting your book and just focus on the writing. If it's good, all that other stuff will fall into place.

This looks like fun! Let's see here...

1) Dammit, KDP, just tell me what the per page payout rate is so I can figure out if KDP is actually worth it. And no, it's not $0.10/page. Remember back when you said it would be $5 a book? Not trusting any of your figures anymore.
2) Come on Createspace. Where's my damn tracking number? I just want to obsessively check how far away those print copies are.
3) Hey, you. Author I blindly followed back. STOP TWEETING ABOUT THAT BOOK YOU HAVE FOR SALE. I don't want to read it after the 100+ hashtag-riddled tweets that you're flooding my feed with every day. And if I had, I wouldn't follow you so you could continue to try and sell me something I already read. Ugh, fine, unfollowed.
4) Collections Canada! You think you could streamline the ISBN process a little? Maybe don't require two separate logins and two separate sites to get one registered? Thanks.
5) Me, you should maybe stop posting rants on Goodreads. You have a book to get back to. And a blurb to rewrite. And that website to update. You should probably blog, too, and work on that business plan you started. I know you have Canada Day off, but you really should use it to get some work done. It's okay, we'll get poutine for dinner to celebrate if you manage to do even one of those things today.

LOL Tanya, I'm with you on that last one. My editor is waiting on three chapters I'm supposed to get to her by tonight, but I'm too easily distracted by things like new KDP rules and the vanishing line chart for my June Select units!

Does anyone have an opinion about the new kindle select tracking and paying by the page?? I find myself checked that little line chart a little too often!

From a personal perspective, it's difficult to say. I only launched by book in June, so my first month has number of borrows, whereas now it's page count. What I'd really like to know is how many borrows for those pages read as that would give me a far better gauge on how people are finding my book.

Financially, I think it's fair for me. Based on Amazon's stats for June, then a pay per page would mean my royalties will be higher if someone reads the whole book, and will be less if they read very little.

I'm still undecided on the financial aspect of the new system, but I am quite addicted to seeing how quickly people are reading my book. It feels like it's now okay to hang over the reader's shoulder to see if they are indeed reading it and the best part is that they don't have to hear me say, did you read it yet!!!!?????