I woke up today and was determined to just erase my authorship past as much as possible. I pulled everything but the three books I knew people bought. I left up the short I first put to KDP on Smashwords, and the two trad pubs that I released, but I just refuse to have the others up. I feel threatened by people finding these now, this is how bad it's gotten. I just don't want them out there. But the first edition of one trad book is out there for sale secondhand (I checked this listing is no longer there), and I'm so overcome with the temptation to buy it so nobody else can have it. I wanted to see how far I got trying to get it, except that technically the royalties go to that seller regardless. I don't think it goes back to the publisher, I know I didn't get my Amazon sales from them, which would've come from me trying to get a copy quicker to confirm it was stuffed up. As far as I know it cannot be reprinted so I'm asking the seller if they have a hardcopy they're reselling or if they send a request to the publisher to reprint it and they're just listing it since they can. I get nobody else has bought it but I kinda hate it's just out there as this version out there that can be bought and profited from. I gave up my print copy to that local reviewer who's disappeared and I let that go, I didn't want my copies but I don't like it's out there and I kinda want to flag it but there is a clause unpublished copies can remain listed by third party sellers, which sucks and I hate it. My copies aren't available for sale but they remain listed. I'm fine with dead links since they're only on a website I haven't pulled (however I'm very tempted to right now, best I can do is edit so I did). I feel like if people want these they can contact me and ask for them, I can make them temporarily available.
I just want to erase my past as an author, I have such heavy regrets around even telling people this is what I do. I want to take it back to the beginning where I was doing this when nobody knew, I kinda left too much info out so people discovered it, but the nutso thing is I was so owning this in high school, it defined me, it made people pay attention and I somehow got a boost of confidence I no longer have despite being better than I was back then. I think it was genuinely trying to get this in the greater sphere of attention that made it harder. I was honestly looking for criticism, what could I do better. It was trying to get a contract that killed this for me and made it harder to deal with, suddenly I cared about shoddy grammar and spelling, I cared about structure. I did that to myself and I regret going this far. I wish I hadn't published at least two of these. I really don't think I'll backtrack on this cull this time. I can't remember why I backtracked last time. I'm only keeping up the picture book because it'll reassign an ISBN if I republish it, which pisses me off about Blurb, and the idea you can churn through numbers and they mean less than a fucking phone number now. Nobody cares if you self-pub anymore. Nobody cares if you're doing well or badly, even the YouTubers who released books, the credit they got was making something original, not that it was necessarily an amazing book, so what even was the point if it transpired you were mediocre all along? Nobody gives a shit about me being an author and I barely consider myself one anymore. It causes too much physical pain and angst, even now I feel uptight and I'm anxious over nothing. I don't want to bring it up, and I'll say next to nothing if you do. I absolutely resent the person I met the other day making me feel like I had to force a conversation because they didn't talk.
The third party seller mentioned they don't have anything other than the details provided with the service so they're not selling a hardcopy. What I think will happen is an edition will be printed as it was it's more a case of not knowing where the royalties go other than to the seller or the original owner. I went looking to see if there was shit up there and found someone's Audible book. It doesn't sound good, and it was put up less than a year ago. I have to let it go, I don't know why I have a sudden urge to contest this it just annoys me I can't get it pulled so easily. It's fine. I shouldn't worry if someone buys it, it's only I'll never know and never see anything for it. I'm more curious if the account it's linked to is defunct or still operational, which sucks if it is, it's more the fact it would confuse someone trying to buy my copy, like anyone would anyway. I could join another subreddit and ask them I'm just curious what the hell happens when the publisher is defunct. I figured I'd just post to the KDP community page and find out. If nothing can be done, that's fine I'm just at a loss to figure out what happens if the CreateSpace account is closed. This seems to have become my assigned "problem to solve" for today. At least I have my first appointment with the new psych people in three weeks. I got shit done no thanks to the recovery coach.
It's looking like I have to include the details of the people I don't even know if they can be reached. I kinda wish they'd contested both listings and not just the one when I republished. I don't really care about the third party getting anything I just want to know the dumb cow closed her CreateSpace account so the money can't go anywhere. It wasn't a stupid question when I asked. I have to let it go, I don't know why I'm suddenly so uncomfortable with this when I've let it go this long. Like I said, the twat held onto money but given it was technically mine when I bought it I took the loss. I'm just so curious as to whether they did the right thing and shut shit down their end. I think from memory the reason the novella was flagged was it flagged the related Kindle book and given that's gone and the paperback's out of print, I have to at least believe she did the right thing her end and closed her account. I don't think even the third party seller could verify if this is a paperback listing since all they've done is lay claim to the listing itself, it's kind of nuts anybody can just do that to sell shit secondhand without even really owning a printed copy. It's kinda made me all the more tempted to try and buy the copy and see if it's been touched at all. The only reason I hesitated was wondering where the split on the royalties would go. I can see now there's a basic description of the condition of the book but the seller uses very similar descriptions of this, I think they have a generic response to grades: very good, good etc. Looking at the reviews (I'm in "my brain wants to sleuth" mode) of the seller they're mostly positive but only seem to be describing physical copies. It's only stating one used copy as well. I'm just so weirdly curious about it. End of the day, if someone wants it and it's the cheaper option, least it's there. The royalties on it would be minuscule anyway, I know I have money from the short I sold just stuck in the ether since I never bothered setting up an account to deposit my royalties at the time, I just didn't care about the money so it doesn't make sense I do now.
Someone else said they're clearly hoping to pick up a secondhand copy, which makes me want to challenge them on their listing so badly right now. It's only the seller had some bad reviews I didn't want to chance having to chase a refund. Nobody seemed to think the money could go anywhere if the original account was closed, so even listing it as existing seems to me to be false advertising. It just seems so stupid to be running a shop that flags potential used copies without verifying if they even exist. What a weird business model.
If anyone asks what I did with the other books, I'm going to say they only existed as experiments. I still regret releasing them on some level. I think I went through the reasons for each one's existence. I really did get addicted to giving away copies, it was just a hope I'd get more reviews and attention by making them available. It was just a PhAsE, mOm. A friend of a friend mentioned liking one so I decided to release it on Smashwords. There's a listing under my real name for the version I put out on Kindle, and to this day I keep thinking it's a totally different edition that I put out there. I did major revisions on it, and made a total mess with continuity errors. How it ended up is about as best as I could get it. It was finding a spike months (maybe even over a year) after I ran that novel through a free KDP giveaway and saw 13 books "fly" off the shelf that "inspired" me to see how far I could take it.
I did a terrible job of editing the Nano book, I remember accidentally wiping my harddrive using find my iPhone or something, so I never used that again. I should've spent more time on it, I have no patience for it, but it did pretty well when I launched it and managed to get some eyes on it. I stressed so much about using copyrighted cover material and spelling errors. Migrating to Smashwords was an interesting time. I heard someone used it and did well for reviews via Barnes and Noble. That didn't work out for me, but I did get in when you could do well with a good looking cover, my biggest "success" is still barely a novella. This was only released after a failed attempt to get it in front of a YA ebook publisher I'd heard about. Then I did a bunch of shorts to mixed to low success. By the time I put out one more short, anthologised my other shorts and then put out a sequel nobody asked for, the diminishing returns were more obvious. I gave up after 2020, which was probably around the time I realised the YouTubers were getting book deals and going through Smashwords, and SW's front store just got inundated with romance and other shit with marketing potential, thus burying people like me, which was upsetting considering people like me got SW where it is. I willingly gave them free material. That people were still finding my books even back in May this year was a minor miracle, it's more I'm stick of tracking progress and kinda want to wind it all down now, which is a plus to self-pubbing. Just having that full control over distribution, once that was taken off me, I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't fix this other person's mistakes and make it better until I demanded them back. It really was just my thing, I didn't want people to know. If I did, I'd have told them about the picture book, and I didn't trust them with it. I don't trust people with my stuff and I regret some of what I did, it really was my thing. I've heard that described by other artists starting out and being made to explain their thought processes to people who didn't "get it". Getting trad deals had a built in expectation I do more to market it, and I severely regret that too. I still stand by my wish I never told anyone, even from the start. I know it wouldn't have made sense for me to go to university but what good did that do me? I could've just done an English degree and all those units would've been available anyway, that's essentially what it was just repackaged as a writing degree. I'm actually just going to tell people that's what I did, I felt so condescended to by that person I met about me having a "writing degree", I know people who know me may be like, that's not what it was, you said, this. I don't care. I did so little creative writing it was pointless anyway.
I am genuinely trying to imagine how my life would have been if I'd kept this shit a secret from the start. I told my dad I wanted to ghostwrite and part of me still would do this had I the confidence to pull it off. It still takes major networking, but it was okay for me to exist in the background even as an author. I really didn't want to do signings or interviews. I just wanted a basic trad contract that didn't ask a lot of me to say I did it. And I have to keep reminding myself I got that. I got what I wanted and it went badly.
I was so stressed from the second I got the email asking for more chapters. (This was also based of a synopsis fed into an online form, which I believe I lodged one published novel through and got no response). I sat up in bed and immediately attacked my face. Someone telling me I had nice skin, I had to laugh because my promo shot (taken by me) I'd slathered on foundation and even put on lipstick (it's not a bad pic but I hate it) to cover up my mess of a stressed face. I obsessed over the results and lived in a state of panic, that was a terrible year for me and it ended badly. I can't cope with doing it again, I think my last response was enough to tell me I wasn't shit. Even reading it now, it seems to have more sincerity than I gave it credit for, it was something concrete, a confirmation I didn't suck, I just wasn't for them, they couldn't give me the marketing I "deserved". All they did was tell me not to market it as YA, which I haven't bothered to amend but I never considered it YA personally. I tried everything in terms of genre, I didn't stick to a niche. Everything was from about a decade's plus worth of material.
I can't handle putting together anything new, submitting or even hunting for an agent. But I do feel a bit more at peace with where I've ended up. I really should burn my contract from the vanity publisher, I still hate they did so well off scamming people, their letters were carbon copies and their contracts were bullshit. Getting the letter from them was another day I was so worked up, I felt so cheated having got a real paper letter with a nice letterhead offering me what was going to be a BS contract. I tracked down info that I was about to be scammed and declined to take the offer presented, giving them a chance to see if they would offer me something I didn't have to contribute to. I was naive, and I honestly don't know who got a proper contract and not a contributor one. Same time, I stupidly left my number with another scam company and they kept pestering me to sign up, I yelled at them when I assumed they were the vanity publishers and said never call me again. I think I actually called the vanity publisher to decline the offer, then got paranoid they had my work and would release it anyway, plus I didn't mention it was already published, so it would've put me in more shit going forward.
I remember seeing a tweet from an excited author saying they had an offer, two tweets later they were asking what a contributor contract was. That's how badly you feel betrayed once you find out you've nearly been scammed. It was why I was so sore about the trad contract I did get, they believed in my mantra not to pay to be published, then scammed me out of money for a sticker I never got. Making people care and have the same level of anger I had is too hard. I feel like working somewhere in that field I'm going to meet people who are totally okay with hybrid publishers without understanding the history of why they were predatory and wrong and should've been better regulated. Okay, you've taken the stigma (that is the right word) out of self-pubbing but what are you doing about companies ripping off younger writers? What are you doing about unscrupulous contests? I'm officially too old to benefit from grants and scholarships. I couldn't get the attention from some program that took care of emergent writers when I was a kid. I'm still sore that magazine I pushed so hard to get attention from ignored me, it still took me forever to throw everything out. Even the centre I joined just took on people who'd barely written anything and just qualified based on very little experience. I could disqualify my work by posting it online somewhere, then it seems like me having a shitty contract also disqualifies me from emergent writer programs, despite me having zero assistance getting this far. I entered magazine contests and lost money to them too, sat under consideration for months and still got knocked back. I was so desperate to get something published I'd settle for some journal or anthology. When I did get an article published, it meant nothing. I could write an update to my story and see how far it gets. I'm too lazy. I also have another Literotica short I'm hesitant to release.
I did so much on my own other people had help and connections with. I'm so glad people are recognising how much previous generations had support, both moral and financial, to get where you are, and if you're not achieving the same on your own, you're not "trying hard enough". I keep starting these rants and feeling worse for it.
I made an exception for Trixie and Katya's books since they weren't really novels and had a comedic slant to them. And pictures. Again, the queens are getting thrown book deals before me too, it's hard to stand at the back of the line of all these celebrities and wait to see if you can garner any interest. But Trixie made a good point of saying most people don't type out their shit, they're likely dictaphoning it in, which makes way more sense, even if you have to do a polished audiobook, that actually suggests these fuckers are doing an audiobook then having that transcribed. It sounds like they're reading, I guess. Point is, even if they bitch about how hard it is, they still have someone at least editing it if nothing else. They don't have to pull together a cover and blurb and do the publicity. You get a press kit to work with. I know now I would've been ignored and low priority to any major publisher. Hiring people to fill in the gaps is hard too. I appreciate people who don't normally write admitting how hard it is, even Dan Olsen making a fake book to prove a point at least proved to him directly, yeah, this is fucking hard if you're not already predisposed to manically write all your fucking thoughts down, like I am. Even then, coughing it up for other people causes writer's block.
I just found my email from Amazon confirming I got the Kindle version of my novella pulled, it wasn't her shutting down the shop, and this was after they contested my rights to my reprint. I completely forgot I filed that and I didn't provide any further info. I can't do anything about the third party seller, especially if they can't physically make a copy. But I was wrong that was the reason the Kindle book was pulled. It was me actually doing a full takedown notice. I don't think I can push that with the third party seller, but I'm still so curious to test out how far I get ordering it. I need to find something more productive, clearly. I stupidly forgot to check the books I'd pulled from the shelves myself and one is already listed the same as the other. I can't remember if this was one that had listings for both, it may have done but now I want to ask how they can justify keeping a listing on the off-chance a secondhand copy will become available.
I've finally found an answer that makes sense. The marketplace is allowing automatic generation of new product listings, in particular for books, so they're just printing from the same source for cheap. That'd be fine with my book but shitty for the other one. The website's available so she's obviously not paying for registration, I only want to know she nuked the CreateSpace account and I feel like she didn't. She removed her listing, so I have to believe this was part of the process, there was only one other book in this circumstance, it was more the Audible book listing that bothered me since it's from last year. I don't know. Like I said, this keeps plaguing me while I have nothing to plague me.
I got past all this only to create Kindle versions of the two print books remaining, after I've archived all the ebooks. I'm still feeling weird about that, so the Kindle versions of two of them seem like a compromise. I don't really want to rerelease the short even if it has a listing, I don't know if the novella will pass as it seemed to think the chapter selection was missing when they weren't, so it will be annoying to have to contest that at all. One is already available so it passed all the required non human checking requirements, I guess. If you have Kindle Unlimited it's free anyway, but I can run a five day deal as of tomorrow. It'll be weird to see if this actually results in anything.
Meanwhile, my Amazon report seems to have hidden a bunch of "sales" that were listed as translation errors. They don't appear to be in the range of the free periods I ran, they appear to be paid copies and I don't have a record of all these on my past orders (according to both US and AU). I tried to weed out my copies so these seem like legit sales I didn't have access to. I remember getting royalties but I haven't kept a record of them otherwise.
I had pretty vague reports back then, now I have the details I think I've sussed it out and it was too complicated since Amazon insists on reporting all sales and were assholes about forcing you to order from the website if you just wanted to see the final copy of any book. They only differentiated recently so I had to run it through my order history and even then it wasn't obvious. Just getting them to agree to author copies and not proof copies with watermarks was too much. I still have too many proof copies I tried dumping in various places. I'm more confident the Kindle versions will be totally fine, I'm not really in the mood to have to redo any of them. Either way, I guess I'm not longer "out" rather I'm back on the Zon wagon to see if I can even profit from this anymore.
I missed an email from Amazon contesting my copyright again on Live to Tell. I've literally sent them the same email I originally sent when I was trying to release this again. It's why you keep your emails, kids. Hopefully it won't take long to resolve but that definitely puts me off trying to make any new versions. I'm thinking if I can finally get people to notice the free copies I'll post them on Facebook, even though they've been free this entire time and nobody paid attention. I don't know. I still can't afford to buy copies and send them on.
I've decided even if I run promo periods I want to make some fucking money off this shit. I just don't think I will anymore. I hate that people think I can monetise my "special interest" this easily. By rights have something I keep getting told will make passive income but the amount I have to spend now to get it the attention it needs to get a decent ROI on marketing will cancel that out. It just seems I had more going on in my reports than I originally assumed but I was still short changed. I can't afford to spend more money on this. I can't expect anyone to do free work for me, I'd have to have someone generous to do this. It's not like I have a portfolio I could put in front of someone who'd elevate me. And trying to get a contract doesn't mean said paperwork wouldn't be full of AI based traps. Me acting like this is another pitfall I have to avoid is so egotistical anyway. I'm playing "I don't want it anyway :p" again. I did private my Instagram and I'm too lazy to post there, I'm just dumping it on Facebook and Twitter and I'm not expecting a lot of interest in it, I think I got three hits overall last time I attempted this, I don't think I had a paperback version at the time. I really don't know if having alternatives for this will get me hard copy hits. I'll maintain my refusal to Audible. You would have to make it a flat fifty bucks for the full package and I can't even ensure I'd earn that back. I just can't do the legwork right now. If nothing it proves the ebook passive income shtick is BS. I think I took the Smashwords thing as far as I sensibly could, I'm just weirdly not prepared to throw in the towel which is f'ing stupid. I'm kind of annoyed they've stalled on me with the other book, it's not that important it's more irritating they didn't keep a record even though the author names on both records are the same and I've made claim to it under my author profile. I know it's likely an auto response and I'm waiting for a human to review it, I just kind of resent it's not set up to resolve this under the same record.
It's still not resolved and there's no reason for it to be other than it's just in a queue. Either way I'm not running a deal, I only got two free hits from the other one, so I'll just leave it all as is and give up again. I have to remember I pulled all that shit off a decade ago now, that's how long I've been self-pubbing and I don't have the capital to make this work. I don't want to run another campaign either. It's fine. It was a pointless experiment, really.
I mentioned elsewhere my approval cam through right after I decided not to send another email pestering them. I enrolled it and ran a campaign anyway, and got three hits, but I'm not expecting it to go further. I had a wish I could've just passively earned money off these so I could stop thinking about getting a real job, if it just delivered on that promise that was sold by way of scams I'd be able to live off that until I felt like doing anything else.
Another promotion led me to just releasing the paperbacks again, I'm conflicted but far too lazy to make them all Kindle books. I just don't have it in me to do it even if I have the material, the process is too stressful and I don't have any patience for it. Recently putting my info on a free author page, and mixing up the listing from the previous publisher which will never go away now. I guess if people accidentally try to buy it it'll prove it doesn't exist. But trying to get it shut down was a fruitless task, I was completely ignored by the seller, the listing got fixed and I decided to just stop. I could go and spam the free website with my other books but I can't be bothered, having one link at least leads people to the rest, so if people are looking, I feel bad about having listings for books they can't buy.
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