Originally posted on The Active Voice: There’s this indie author I know a little bit from the Kboards.com forum. Her name is Pauline Creeden, and she’s an ordinary midlister, like so many of us. I remember PMing her some time ago and gushing about how particularly beautiful one of her book covers is — the one…
deborahjay 
Extremely alarming post Deb. We are at the mercy of Amazon once again. There are so many scammers in the book world damaging author’s careers. And it doesn’t help that Amazon never inquires personally with authors when there is an issue such as this, and taking of reviews, etc. They do an auto email notifying us of suspended rights. We’re guilty and not even asked to prove ourselves innocent. This boils my blood. I feel like forming an actual protest!
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Yes, it’s terrifying and infuriating all in one, that Amazon is so uncaring about both the suppliers of it’s products and the truth. They have truly become the monster that is so big it feels no need to take care of anyone but itself.
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Yes, because they know we aren’t all going to pack our bags and books and leave 😦
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Exactly. There just is no viable alternative, and that’s a troubling trend these days with big businesses, especially online ones.
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Ooh, I read this the other day but my phone wouldn’t let me comment – all I can say is, very scary! I would be thrilled to see a big spike in my KDP pages read, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve already been reconsidering the program, especially after seeing searches for my books on Smashwords – this is yet another thing to consider.
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I’m just setting up a countdown deal, and this is making me feel a bit unsure of how the results might be viewed, even though it is their own programme! I have one series in KDP and one not, and so far I’m not seeing much difference in overall sales of either. The draw of staying in select, apart from borrows, which add a bit, is the ability to price down to 99c and still get 70% of the income.
How do you see searches on Smashwords? I’m not in there, though I have wondered about it.
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Oh, that’s very interesting about how you’re not seeing much difference between KDP and not KDP, so to speak. I have another book in editing at the moment unrelated to Ambeth, and I don’t think I’ll enrol it in KDP. And the Smashwords search came up by chance through my blog, it showed up as a search term ‘Ambeth Smashwords’, so it was really a fluke sort of thing. But it’s got me thinking… Also I know some Canadian readers have been frustrated with not being able to review me on the .ca site. Amazon has been great in terms of actually being published, but now I feel I need to be more strategic. And I hope your countdown deal goes well – I’ve not tried one of those yet.
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I’ve run several countdown deals since I moved the one series into Select, and they are a great tool – so easy to schedule and there’s more visibility on Amazon, and that advantage of not losing the 70% cut even though you lower the price. If you haven’t run one, then you are missing out on one of the biggest advantages of being in Select – go, do it! You still have to advertise a bit, but it’s worth the effort.
Apart from the worrying trends , the biggest downside to Select is that such things as the countdown sale only operate in the US & UK – soooo frustrating for readers in other countries.
Sounds like a good plan to go wide with your next one, and watch for any difference, then you can make a more informed decision about what is best for your series.
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Thanks Deborah – that’s all really useful information. I’ll definitely give the countdown deal a go. I’m working on a marketing plan at the moment, as I haven’t done much advertising really, so it will be good to try a few different things, especially up against my non-KDP book. 🙂
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And completely unrelated to this topic, I know we were going to compare GOT notes after the finale – have you seen it yet? And if you have, what did you think?
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(Warning – major GoT spoilers below)
Oh yes! I taped the early showing and watched it as soon as I could.
I found the first half incredibly annoying as it was all so dark I could barely see what was going on, but what happened was, as expected of GoT, shocking and awesome all in one!
Very sorry to see Marjery go, I felt she had plenty more schemes up her sleeve, but the alliance of her grandmother with the other ladies has vast promise!
Arya put in a nice little performance – you wouldn’t want to be on her list, now would you?
Delighted to discover Jon Snow isn’t a bastard after all, wonder when he will find out…
Cersei on the iron throne – well, I never expected that. And that dress!
And the final scenes with the dragons overflying the ships – can’t believe we have to wait most of a year now for the next instalment.
Phew! So much going on. So good to see all the disparate threads finally starting to weave together.
Your thoughts?
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Yes, so much goodness in the finale, I can’t wait till the next season either! I do find that the dark scenes are tough to watch in the daytime (like Aryas time in the house of the many faced God) so I feel your frustration there. But wow! So many OMG moments – I mean, I knew Cersei was going to light the wildfire, but I didn’t expect Margaery and the small council to go up with it! I was sad to see Margaery go too, I thought she had promise. Still, it has given Dany even more power now, with the Tyrell army behind her – can’t wait to see what happens when she and her dragons get to Westeros. And I think Jaime feels betrayed by Cersei – she did the thing he killed a king to avoid, so I see dark times in their future. And poor Tommen – that was a gasp! moment. And then Jons parentage being confirmed, and the whole thing in the North – yikes! Like you say, so much going on.
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Yes, I feel a rift between Jaime and Cersei coming on – that was a pretty telling look on his face when he came in to find her being crowned.
I still have the image in my head of poor Tommen just toppling forward, while he was never a strong character (and those just don’t have a hope in this world) he was a sweet boy trying to do his best. I wasn’t overly surprised when he did that.
Now Cersei has no children left to protect, she really has nothing to lose, does she? Dangerous, even more dangerous than before…
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Oh indeed – I think she’s gone over the edge now. Wondering who’ll she’ll take along with her.
And yes, poor Tommen, he was so sweet. It did make me sad.
Oh, and Arya avenging the Red Wedding was indeed fabulous!
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It sure was! Sigh, now we have to wait soooo long.
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