Another One Bites the Dust

Last week, Samhain Publishing announced it will be closing at the end of February.

The Digital Reader and several other outlets announced the news with suggestions that customers download and back up their libraries since they had time, unlike the three-day warning/debacle of All Romance eBooks back in December.

Wait! Haven't we heard this one about Samhain before ?

Yeah, we have. A year ago in fact. Publishers Weekly, along with several other media outlets, announced Samhain's closing from a letter sent to the publisher's authors. However, some time later, principle Christine Brashear wrote another e-mail to the authors to "clarify" the situations. It was only a "misunderstanding" and Samhain was "downsizing", not "closing."

Um, okay?

Several Samhain writers were marketing their releases well into July of 2016, many stating all's right with the world. Others said they had their contracts terminated.

Is this a better fuster cluck than EC or ARe? If writers get their rights back without Samhain having to file for bankruptcy, then I'd say yes. But that's just me.

On the other hand, anyone who didn't get paid will probably never see a dime of that money. It's long since been spent on overhead, contrary to what the conspiracy theorists believe.

Later on Friday, a couple of Alter Ego's Facebook friends/readers lamented the end of so many publishers. Unfortunately, they blame Amazon. The real problem is that any business is cyclical. A good business person knows you have to put some money aside for the slow time. Since e-books were so new, many publishers and writers thought the gravy train would last forever.

Hell, I'm impressed it lasted for nearly ten years before the first downturn. And I'm sorry, but this downturn was inevitable.

I hate seeing any publisher go under (well, almost any), but we writers have a lot more options that we did when I started this bizarre journey nearly twenty years ago. Don't fret just yet. Take a good, hard look at your business plan and make whatever adjustments you need to make to survive.

Good luck!

Data Guy Strikes Back and Other Important Info

I was going to talk about my projects this morning, but Data Guy released the Author Earnings Report for May 2016 yesterday.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP ON A CRACKER!

If you want or have a career as a writer, you need to read this report. It shows the marked changes in the publishing industry.

Another important blog to read is Kris Rusch's current series on contracts. There's lots of scary (and career ruining) contracts these days, and indie writers aren't immune. She focuses on some problems with the now-defunct Booktrope.

To top off the recent spate of writers not getting paid, Barnes & Noble's NOOKPress managed to fully fuck up payments for the month of May. I've counted nearly 300 indie writers including myself who did not receive payment on May 31st. And these are just the folks who bitched. Goddess only knows how many others are in this boat.

Sadly, it took B&N over forty-eight hours to issue any kind of statement. I'll update this post if/when I receive my payment.

Needless to say, I've pulled all of my books from B&N after this fiasco. I'd previously pulled my books from Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, etc. in preparation for the new book covers and updated back matter. Now, I'm wondering if I should try Kindle Unlimited since I have a fresh slate. I'm already researching some other retailers like All Romance eBooks.

The whole incident really bums me out because the original Nook was a decent product. But no, the short-range thinking of Len Riggio, his board of directors, and B&N executives torpedoed their potential before they even got off the ground. And they wonder why Amazon is crushing them.

After all that, I promise more positive news next week!


UPDATE: My payment from B&N/NOOKPress arrived in my business bank account this morning. I received an answer to my e-mail I sent to them on Tuesday at noon today.

Unfortunately, this fix doesn't alleviate my deep concern over B&N/NOOKPress's professional behavior of late, or their lack thereof in this case. This isn't the first time they've had a problem paying authors who indie publish through them. Therefore, my e-books will remain unavailable through Barnes & Noble's website for the time being.

Which means I need to spend tomorrow updating a zillion links. URGH!

To Distribute or Not To Distribute

Not a whole lot has changed in the nearly  three years since I first talked about distributors. If anything more distributors for e-books have joined the fray since Smashwords opened their doors. The problem is that many distributors are distributing in order to get their claws in the burgeoning indie market without regard to long-term implications.

And yes, despite claims that e-book sales are down or flat, many of these pundits have no accurate way to count indie books that don't use ISBNs. Amazon isn't about to inform them either.

Is it worth it to use a distributor?

Three years ago, I said yes, if only to get into Apple, Kobo and Sony. None of these retailers allowed direct uploads from individual writers at the time. Sony still doesn't. But three years ago, the only distributor to handle indie e-books was Smashwords.

There were complaints about Smashwords at the time, primarily about their trademarked Meatgrinder software that converted a MS-WORD file to various formats for distribution. Smashwords has since upgraded so you can upload an EPUB file. However, the EPUB must pass EPUB3 check (which, frankly in my personal opinion, is a bogus, bullshit way of trying to keep some books out of the market). But you still have to upload the MS-WORD file in order to convert to MOBI and other formats.

Since 2011, Kobo and Apple have launched their own self-publishing initiatives. Unfortunately, as the Kernel Pornopocalyspe showed, using Kobo's Writing Life shows their utter disregard for indie authors regardless of their genre. Apple insists that you can only upload through a Mac or other Apple device.

More companies have popped up since 2011 offering to distribute your e-books to retailers.

One of the most popular is Draft2Digital, aka D2D. They currently only distribute to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. They ran in to a major snag during the Kernel Pornpocalypse when their entire catalog was deleted from the Kobo retail site. They have worked hard to settle the situation for the benefit of their e-book vendors

While I have no complaints about D2D's handling of the matter with Kobo, I had problem with a particular book passing the EPUB 3 check for distribution to Apple in June. Again, this was not something that was D2D's fault. Because of my family's moving situation, I marked the book as 'Do Not Distribute' to Apple on June 10. I saved the e-mail confirming the book's status.

Out of the blue in October, I received a notice from D2D that the book had been rejected by Apple. When I went online, my D2D dashboard said the book had been sent to Apple, but the book's individual record page said it was stil marked as do not distribute. After several frustrating e-mails with a young woman in Customer Service where she basically accused me of lying about the situation, I was so angry that I called D2D president Kris Austin and told him to delete my account.

My experience with XinXii wasn't much better. The company started as a German e-book retailer, but has expanded into distribution to the major retailers (Amazon, Apple, Kobo, etc.). I have sold books in Germany, but only through Amazon DE. The year and a half I was with XinXii I didn't sell a single thing, but there are American indie writers who sold very through them. My problem with them began when they switched to an opt-out method instead of opt-in and only gave vendors two days to opt out.

In all fairness, Smashwords has also switched to opt-out for new markets, but they give vendors at least two weeks notice.

Overdrive focuses on the library and educational markets, but they do some distribution to retailers. They still doesn't distribute for individual indie writers. In theory, writers could form their own company to apply with Overdrive, but so far I haven't heard from anyone if it's worth distributing through them.

If you write romance, in ANY of its subgenres, check out All Romance e-Books. They are primarily a retailer, but they do distribute to the major markets. I haven't applied to them yet, but there are some legal matters involving Angry Sheep Publishing since I want to apply as a company.

So does using a distributor make sense?

It depends on your resources and plans. For me, uploading directly to Amazon and Barnes & Noble makes sense as long as books are $2.99 and up. Below that I actually earn more by distributing through Smashwords.

DH has suggested that I buy a MacBook for the sole purpose of directly uploading to Apple since my sales have improved significantly during 2013. I don't know if I want to deal directly with Apple considering some their previous behavior.

Kobo? It's going to take a lo-o-o-ong time to forgive their extreme over-reaction during the Kernel Pornocalypse before I would try them. I wasn't harmed, but I know too many authors who were.

One last word of warning, do not take my word or anyone else's concerning any distributors. Do your own investigating and do what's best for your business.