SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR FRIENDSThis *INSANE* email from Barnes & Noble WTF—no more than 100 books and they start deleting??—removing titles that don't meet minimum sales?
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@susankayequinn
I hope they back away from this desicion too and instead attack the AI slop - maybe have the books reviewed for slop covers and editing instead, and punish those who seem to publish books constantly (or have them reviewed by a human at least).If they wont...well, for many of us who have very little energy, this is a dream ender...and AI was already kicking our asses to the highest degree.
@hiisikoloart I would (gently) encourage you to consider that it doesn't have to be a dream ender. There can be other ways to share your stories, ways that can work within the limits of your energy &other constraints. If I know anything, after 15 years of publishing, it's that READERS will find a way... they want your stories and they'll construct whole networks to get what they want. Be patient, see what develops, but don't assume the SlopSlingers will succeed in killing art. They will not.
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the injury of indie authors being shoved off platforms because AI is sucking up all the storage space after the insult of those very works being stolen by AI corps to feed their slop machine
(D2D and B&N both)
@susankayequinn A single bog-standard 1tb drive can easily store a million books (assuming a generous 1mb/book).
Whatever other problems the fake intelligence industry is causing, a lack of storage space for ebooks is not one of them.
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@susankayequinn A single bog-standard 1tb drive can easily store a million books (assuming a generous 1mb/book).
Whatever other problems the fake intelligence industry is causing, a lack of storage space for ebooks is not one of them.
@aianhanma my covers alone are each several MB
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@hiisikoloart I understand, D2D really is betraying indie authors (who *made them as a business* mind you).
I still distribute through them but ONLY for Bookshop and ONLY because that's the only real way for me to get there.
I encourage you to publish widely and not rely just on KDP.
https://wandering.shop/@susankayequinn/115895107254032111I will just toss out that after I stopped paying for Amazon Ads, Google Play Store has become the biggest earning place for me.
And you can't reach them through D2D anyway, you have to go direct with them. They make it fairly easy, too.
It took about a year for my books to take off there, but now I'm glad I publish with them.
(Even if they are evil... *sigh*)
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@hiisikoloart I would (gently) encourage you to consider that it doesn't have to be a dream ender. There can be other ways to share your stories, ways that can work within the limits of your energy &other constraints. If I know anything, after 15 years of publishing, it's that READERS will find a way... they want your stories and they'll construct whole networks to get what they want. Be patient, see what develops, but don't assume the SlopSlingers will succeed in killing art. They will not.
Co-op? Find one, start one?
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@aianhanma my covers alone are each several MB
@susankayequinn Doesn't change the conclusion all that much: let's get a royal average of 100mb/book, that is still ten thousand books on that 1tb drive. Buying a needlessly high end one for $200 delivers the backbreaking burden of $.02 per book.
That is two cents over the lifetime of a modern storage device, easily more than five years.
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@hiisikoloart I would (gently) encourage you to consider that it doesn't have to be a dream ender. There can be other ways to share your stories, ways that can work within the limits of your energy &other constraints. If I know anything, after 15 years of publishing, it's that READERS will find a way... they want your stories and they'll construct whole networks to get what they want. Be patient, see what develops, but don't assume the SlopSlingers will succeed in killing art. They will not.
@susankayequinn
I will keep publishing, just through KDP for now and hope D2D will get their shit together. (^_^)* -
Co-op? Find one, start one?
@faduda @susankayequinn
I have my hands more than full with my small art business and can't afford any co-op fees. Nor do I have time for setting up a co-op. (You mean business sense, right?)I could maybe trade services with someone to help me manage the workload...but thus far haven't found anyone who would barter those skills for art. (^_^)*
My dreams aren't dead yet, but I know some who are so utterly dejected they might not write anymore at all.
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I will just toss out that after I stopped paying for Amazon Ads, Google Play Store has become the biggest earning place for me.
And you can't reach them through D2D anyway, you have to go direct with them. They make it fairly easy, too.
It took about a year for my books to take off there, but now I'm glad I publish with them.
(Even if they are evil... *sigh*)
@Firlefanz @susankayequinn
Maybe I could try that....despite then being evil too. I hate that we only have bad options available. -
@faduda @susankayequinn
I have my hands more than full with my small art business and can't afford any co-op fees. Nor do I have time for setting up a co-op. (You mean business sense, right?)I could maybe trade services with someone to help me manage the workload...but thus far haven't found anyone who would barter those skills for art. (^_^)*
My dreams aren't dead yet, but I know some who are so utterly dejected they might not write anymore at all.
@hiisikoloart @susankayequinn
Write first ..
Life will find a way. -
@faduda @susankayequinn
I have my hands more than full with my small art business and can't afford any co-op fees. Nor do I have time for setting up a co-op. (You mean business sense, right?)I could maybe trade services with someone to help me manage the workload...but thus far haven't found anyone who would barter those skills for art. (^_^)*
My dreams aren't dead yet, but I know some who are so utterly dejected they might not write anymore at all.
I want to offer to trade, bc I could really use art for book covers rather than trying to cobble something up myself, and I don't mind doing publishing stuff. But my health is such I'm not very reliable in terms of getting shit done in a timely fashion.
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I will just toss out that after I stopped paying for Amazon Ads, Google Play Store has become the biggest earning place for me.
And you can't reach them through D2D anyway, you have to go direct with them. They make it fairly easy, too.
It took about a year for my books to take off there, but now I'm glad I publish with them.
(Even if they are evil... *sigh*)
@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart wait, you can publish on Google Play Store? That's news to me.
Honestly, I only really use KDP for physical copies of my book (in case someone wants one). But I really need to diversify my revenue streams (both as an author and as a content creator)
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@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart wait, you can publish on Google Play Store? That's news to me.
Honestly, I only really use KDP for physical copies of my book (in case someone wants one). But I really need to diversify my revenue streams (both as an author and as a content creator)
Yes, you can. They call it the Partner Center, you have to set up an account, and that's it.
Their uploading interface is simple, but you can't set up keywords or categories, they do that on their own (and it can be hit and miss for a while).
I'm also not entirely sure how the downloads work, I tried once and it seems they use something from Adobe (and that part was down). But people do buy books through it.
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Yes, you can. They call it the Partner Center, you have to set up an account, and that's it.
Their uploading interface is simple, but you can't set up keywords or categories, they do that on their own (and it can be hit and miss for a while).
I'm also not entirely sure how the downloads work, I tried once and it seems they use something from Adobe (and that part was down). But people do buy books through it.
@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart interesting. I'll give it a check.
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@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart interesting. I'll give it a check.
It's only for ebooks and audio, though, they don't have a print branch.
On the other hand, my print sales are far and few between... I'd say 98% of my royalties are ebook.
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It's only for ebooks and audio, though, they don't have a print branch.
On the other hand, my print sales are far and few between... I'd say 98% of my royalties are ebook.
@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart same here. People are preferring digital copies of books more than physical copies it seems.
So I think having just one place for physical copies is fine at the moment. And KDP seems to be doing fine for that (as much as I have my own issues with Amazon and their subsidiaries)
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I want to offer to trade, bc I could really use art for book covers rather than trying to cobble something up myself, and I don't mind doing publishing stuff. But my health is such I'm not very reliable in terms of getting shit done in a timely fashion.
@JessMahler
Would you like to dicuss this more via email?
I would like to know more about your skilllsets and time line that you could possibly work with.
if your skills match, I'd love to work with you.My email is: hiisikoloart@gmail.com
Also my website for you to see my art skills:
https://mxmilo.wixsite.com/hiisikoloartMy very sad author website that has not seen updates for a while: https://mxmilo.wixsite.com/marareboi
(Website updates are on my long to-do list)
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@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart same here. People are preferring digital copies of books more than physical copies it seems.
So I think having just one place for physical copies is fine at the moment. And KDP seems to be doing fine for that (as much as I have my own issues with Amazon and their subsidiaries)
I recently started using D2D for print distribution (yes, yes, I know), because they use Ingram Spark without any cost to me.
And that means I can get my print books into the German bookstores and distribution system, among others. This is huge.
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I recently started using D2D for print distribution (yes, yes, I know), because they use Ingram Spark without any cost to me.
And that means I can get my print books into the German bookstores and distribution system, among others. This is huge.
@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart wow. This change must really suck for you then.
I tried using it for print distribution as well, but the page count just didn't line up for me.
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@Firlefanz @susankayequinn @hiisikoloart wow. This change must really suck for you then.
I tried using it for print distribution as well, but the page count just didn't line up for me.
I basically just take the print files I toss up on KDP and dump them into D2D. Works easily.
Haven't *sold* a print copy that way yet, but... it's all about making it possible for readers.
