Amazon Select – what next?

When KDP Select hit back in December it was a wild storm of ups and downs.  The sky had fallen, but it hadn’t.  Amazon was the greatest company in the world, but it wasn’t.  Maybe it is.  Who knows.  For those who don’t what Amazon KDP Select is… it’s an exclusive publishing program with Amazon where you, the author, give Amazon 90 days exclusivity to your book.  That means it cannot be sold anywhere else for 90 days.  There are some strict rules that go into review copies and samples, etc. but sometimes those are held case by case.

In return for this exclusivity, you get 5 days to make your book free without hassle and you get your book included into a lending library where if you’re book is borrowed you get a royalty. 

 

In the beginning the program was extremely lucrative because in the background, free downloads were counted as sales in the algorithm system.  This meant that if you had a big free day, when you came off of free, you could be listed meaning your book would have greater visibility.  That meant some authors we

Kobo and The Writing Life

Kobo is in the game now.  Publisher’s Weekly Article

Well, they always have been, using Smashwords as a way to distribute to them.  So why is this big news?

It’s big news because it’s more expansion into the eBook and self-publishing world.  As authors, we all like expansion because we know – and probably fear – that one day the doors will closed forever and we’ll be left outside, hungry, alone, and poor.  Maybe that day will come, maybe it won’t.

But take a look at Kobo… they’re a big company and they seem to doing this right.  They’ve invited some authors to try out their platform and give suggestions.  As far as being open to the rest of the world, the tentative date is for the end of June but we all know that can change.

The cover for Come Back to Me

This will be out soon too… a literary romance novel titled Come Back to Me

Enjoy.

The cover for Executive Obsession

This is the cover for my new thriller - Executive Obsession

I’m in love.

Why fear is going to make you fail

Because you’re going to let it get to you.  You’re going to let it sink deep within your body, your soul, and let it spread like a virus.  What fear does is make you question everything – and I mean everything.  Before you know it, you’re thinking about something that happened last year or even five years ago, trying to track the exact second in time when something changed or happened that may have led you to this path where fear exists.

On Writing w/ Stephen King

I’m not going to drop a hundred quotes on Stephen King, because I can, and I’m sure on previous blogs, I have.  I caught a post a few weeks about 20 tips from Stephen King to become a good writer and I read each one and felt more empowered as I continued.

I’m writing this post to tell you all out there to please not view Stephen King as just a horror writer.  The man is a literary genius, writing well beyond the spectrum of horror.  Sure, he scares us, but within his stories there are some masterpiece storytelling along with elements of English and fiction that are like gold.

1 book a year? You’re lazy!

This new revolution of readers and books has been creating many storms, and usually I sit back and admire them.  Then one pops up that I have to comment on, thus launching me back into the world of blogging.  Hope you’re all ready…

Should authors write more than 1 book a year?

If an author writes 1 book a year, is he/she lazy?

Seriously… are these questions we face right now?  If so, why?  It doesn’t mean anything to me if someone can produce 1 book a year or 10 books a year.  It’s their decision and it’s their work going into the material.  I really feel that many writers out there view writing and getting published as the covenant thing where you receive tons of cash a