I had a wonderful surprise this morning. Reedsy Discovery emailed me a notice that I had made it into their Featured list for this week. Reedsy is a big outfit for self-published authors. I checked out their notice and soon learned that I am top of their list for historical fiction.
You can check it out here https://reedsy.com/discovery
My head is still spinning while I try to understand what I should do next, and while I brood on something I did yesterday that could make a mess of this golden opportunity.
What did I do yesterday?
Oh boy, Amazon! The world’s online store ain’t called Amazon without good reason. Venture into that jungle, you and your product might never be heard of again.
“Dr Livingston, I presume!”
“No, Allan Hands. Is that English explorer lost here too? Where is the exit?”
So let me explain what went wrong at Amazon, before I explain what I am going to do about my Featured status at Reedsy. Amazon is where all self-published authors enrol their books. It gives access to a worldwide market without incurring any production costs. Trouble is, like all DIY, the savings you make by doing it yourself are often squandered by the mistakes you make as a complete amateur. Which brings me back to yesterday.
Yesterday I realised that I had ‘published’ one of my books without securing all the advantages of copyright. In other words, I had not ticked the box for D.R.M. (please don’t ask what it means). The only way I could reverse the situation was unpublish the book and recreate it on Amazon under a different ASIN (don’t ask). Unfortunately, this has unlinked the kindle and paperback formats for my series of two books, MIRRORED SWORD PARTS ONE & TWO, which means, if you are looking for a particular format, you might have to poke around before you find it. Amazon being a jungle, you could get lost trying to find the right format. Which means I could lose a customer!
If anything is destined to keep a self-published author awake all night, it is the nightmare scenario of losing a customer. Customers are rare specimens, more beautiful than the most glorious butterfly, lightly floating through the jungle from one blossom to another, until disappearing forever into the thickly tangled foliage, a golden opportunity never to be recovered.
Kindly allow me a few moments to regather my composure.
Okay, I can cope. So, let’s return to the burning question: what am I going to do about my sudden good luck, winning Featured status at Reedsy? Good question! Well, I am an author, so I’ll write something to settle all my feelings of excitement (more customers looking for me!) and also feelings of disappointment (more customers getting lost!)
Which is what I did just now.
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