New Books finally out.

Merry Christmas

As a gift to myself, I just published the final two books of my Not With A Whimper series.

They are now live on Amazon and (shudder) in Kindle Unlimited. With sales approaching '0', I've decided that it's worth a shot, even though I pretty much deplore both KU -- and myself for giving in to this.

I'm putting all four books of the series in KU, but none of my other novels.

Seven years after beginning the series, I'm finally done. They are:

Producers (Book 1): https://www.amazon.com/Not-Whimper-Producers-D-Boulter-ebook/dp/B01MQX4NDS/
Destroyers (Book 2): https://www.amazon.com/Not-Whimper-Destroyers-D-Boulter-ebook/dp/B071DQ642T/
Preservers (Book 3): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MD8R1NZ/
Survivors (Book 4): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MKGMNFN/

As the four novels are concurrent, they can be read in any order, but the above is the best with regards spoilers. And book 4 finishes off the threads began in books 1-3.


It has been a tough day. My Cat went up on the roof intending to ambush a certain someone and thus procure some reindeer steaks for himself, but came down with empty paws. Further consequences of his futile attempt: no present from Santa Claws for me this year.

I hope you all have a good end to the year and that next year will see us all prospering.

Live the Joy

D.A. Boulter.

Radiant Joy

Recently, something occurred to send my thoughts back many years to a memory of my childhood.

Christmas in those days differed markedly from those of today. The Christmas Season began on December 1st. Before that, no Christmas songs blared from radio or over a store's speaker system. No Christmas advertisements on TV, Radio, or in the Newspaper. Few put up decorations before the First. November 30th passed and suddenly, next morning, Christmas Season began.

A big department store in town created its "Toyland". Toyland bore little resemblance to the Christmas section of a store today -- at least as far as the small northern town in which I lived knew it. Toyland did not consist of several aisles in the store, but of a room in and of itself -- perhaps they built temporary walls for that very purpose. Toyland opened on December 1st.

One moment, you walked in the mundane part of the store, the next, after passing through a portal -- sometimes just a door, sometimes a short tunnel -- you arrived in Toyland. Everywhere one looked, one saw toys, games, festive lights, and the rest of the accoutrements of the season.

For youngsters such as myself, it seemed a magical place, filled with wonders, hopes, and dreams.

On one particular occasion, I had wandered into the store and through the portal to Toyland. I was maybe eight or ten years old at the time. Whilst looking over things that I couldn't afford, but could dream about, I saw a man standing nearby. He appeared really, really old -- maybe in his late twenties or early to mid thirties.

His expression caught my attention. I can only describe his smile as one of radiant joy as his gaze took in the same things that mine did. I only saw him for a few seconds, as the board games and toys reclaimed my attention. I don't know if he even saw me. And, if he did, I doubt that he thought anything of it.

What caused that joy? Did he shop for others? Did he shop for himself? Did he see in his mind's eye his children opening their gifts on Christmas morning? I'll never know.

I saw this man for a few seconds on one occasion half a century ago. Yet I remember him. And those few seconds engendered in me the belief in a greater goodness in mankind. Joy became a real possibility, for I had seen it with my own eyes.

And what had he seen in return? Just a child looking at toys, if he saw me at all. And what did he get out of that? Probably nothing. And he'll never know the gift that he gave to me on that cold and dark December day. A gift that has lasted throughout decades of living.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't live my life with this a constant memory, but it comes back from time to time. And, just as he unknowingly gave me this gift, I have given in return.

I know this because on some few occasions others have told me so. Some little thing I did without thinking became a gift to them. And if these few people do exist, then surely others do as well, others who did not later tell me.

Likewise, I figure, all of us have done similar. Some small kindness given that means almost nothing to us at the time has found a grateful recipient. It could be the gift of a smile, the picking up of a dropped item, the holding open of a door, or even simply a presence in an otherwise cold and brutal world. But, as small and effortless as this was for us, it may have triggered something all out of proportion in the ones to whom we gave -- even if we gave unknowingly. And they will remember us for decades to come, with gratitude.

Likewise with writing. I recall a time when I worked in an isolated work camp -- a radar station in the Arctic. I went through a lot of books in the station's 'library'. Having finished all the (to me) good ones, I went on to those not-so-good. One, in particular -- though I no longer remember it -- contained a single sentence that I needed to read at that time. I no longer remember what it consisted of, nor why it was important to me at the time.

That author will never know what he or she gifted me with. And, I have done the same with my writing, for at least a couple of readers have later said so.

What could be more fitting in this season, as the year ends, than to remember with gratitude those who have aided us -- knowingly or unknowingly?

I wish you all the best of the season, and hope you all experience radiant joy.

* * *

As for my own writing, it progresses. Editing and proofing a book takes longer (for me) than writing the thing in the first place.

However, I'm on the last stages of editing and proofing the final two books in my 4-book Not With A Whimper series. They should join the other two on Amazon before the end of the year -- sometime between Christmas and New Years's Eve.

Back in the Saddle Again

For anyone who's still following me -- almost doubtful after all this time -- I have begun writing again after a time of depressing writer's block.

I want to complete the other two Not With A Whimper novels and get them out before the end of the year. In September I wrote the equivalent of a novel, completing the first draft of Not With A Whimper: Preservers. I had thought it would be similar in length to the other two (about 65k words), but it kept getting longer and longer and the first draft ended up at 93k words.

I'm now pushing hard to get the other one, Not With A Whimper: Survivors, completed in first draft. It's already at 82k and with what I know I have left, looks to be my longest novel to date.

Because of the dating -- all four novels take place concurrently -- and the fact that characters from some novels appear in other novels, I'm waiting until I complete the first draft of Survivors before I try to publish Preservers. These two were the hardest to separate, and I need to be very careful of my timing.

I'm hoping for a November release date for Preservers, and a December date for Survivors. And then, at last, I can get back to Colleen Yrden's story, which I've pretty much put on a back burner for a couple of years. I have approximately 30k words written in the third novel, "One Trade Too Many", and I'd like to finish that up, too.

Anyway, I'll be so happy to see the last of Not With A Whimper. Right now, all told, the four books together are about 1000 print pages (303k words), and when I started it, I figured it for maybe 120k words (about 400 pages).

So, I'm back -- in case anyone is still out there.

Live the joy, people.

And It Continues -- Amazon Follies (Next Chapter)

When last I left you, I had sent a letter to Mr Jeff Bezos. I did receive a reply from one of his executive readers stating that:

“Jeff Bezos received your email and I am responding on his behalf.

I’ve received your request and am connecting with the appropriate team to review the information you’ve provided. You should expect a response regarding your account status in the next few days.”

Okay, well, the only request I made [See previous post] was to answer why any legitimate author should go with KU. So, I waited with avid anticipation to see what this ‘appropriate team’ would do with the ‘information I provided.

Well, apparently the ‘appropriate team’ was the previously contacted ‘content-review’ team, and their answer was the same as previously:

“Hello, 

As we previously stated, we still detect reading or borrow activity for your books originating from accounts attempting to manipulate Kindle services. You are responsible for ensuring the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions. We cannot offer advice on marketing services or details of our investigations.

Please be aware we will not be providing additional details.

Regards,

Amazon KDP”

Apparently, even Bezos’s executive readers can’t understand English. I certainly didn’t ask them to check my account status again. I did send a reply stating something similar and asking that my books be pulled out of KU immediately, but received no reply.

Anyway, what’s gone by has gone by.

Now for the up-to-the-minute news.

With most of my books pulled out of Kindle Unlimited (KU), my ‘page reads’ fell to five thousand – most of those in the first third of the month before I pulled them. My author friends told me that Amazon checks on the 8th of each month, so I waited with dread to find out if any new ‘violations’ had occurred. Apparently not. My page reads all seem to be valid, for they’ve taken none away and my account has neither been suspended or terminated.

No everyone was so lucky. There are many more reports from authors saying that 50% – it seems many are using the 50% figure – of their ‘pages reads’ from April were taken away. And one author, who also has done nothing wrong, who had pages taken away from March, had more page reads taken away in April. As this represents a ‘continuing violation’, she has had her account suspended.

Here’s here boiler-plate e-mail:

Hello,

We are reaching out to you as a follow-up on our previous communication regarding reading or borrow activity originating from accounts attempting to manipulate Kindle services. We detected continued illegitimate activity after our communication and, as a result, we have suspended your account to protect our publishers and readers experience. 

We need you to take the necessary actions to stop the activity. We encourage you to review any marketing services you may have used, since you are responsible for ensuring that the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions. Once you have done so, please send a response to content-review@amazon.com which includes a statement that you reviewed all marketing services you may have used, and confirms the discontinued use of any that might be responsible for this activity.

Once we receive this affirmation, we will reactivate your account. Please be aware, any additional illegitimate activity may result in termination. If we don’t receive this affirmation, we will terminate your account after 14 days. 

Regards,

Amazon KDP

Basically, you have to admit your guilt – whether there is any guilt or not – before you can continue. It’s a sad commentary on Amazon.

This author wrote back, asking them to pull all her books out of KU immediately, even though this will constitute a disaster for her. What else can she do? It makes me sick at heart, and has decreased my already depleted motivation to continue writing.

Forced from Kindle Unlimited -- Open Letter to Jeff Bezos

Yes, I know, I said I'd never again be a part of Kindle Unlimited. So, sue me. Or better, just call me an idiot. I did it for a pen name. I made a few dollars; now I might have to pay for it.

Open letter to Jeff Bezos

Mr Bezos:

I opened my email program and found I’d received a message from your company.

The mail came from ‘content review’, asking for my attention, and I got the immediate feeling that this would be bad. I didn’t know why I’d receive that message now; I’d done nothing with my account in almost six months, haven’t changed a bit of content at all. Thus, it was with no little consternation I opened the message and found that my account is in violation, and if it continues to be so, I’ll be faced with penalties up to and including the termination of that account.

What did I do wrong? Actually, nothing. Not a thing. Amazon claims that accounts suspected of ‘manipulation’ have borrowed my book and I therefore accrued ‘illegal page reads’. I’m told that Amazon doesn’t offer advice on marketing, but I’d better be careful because if this happens again, well, see the termination threat above. There’s only one problem with that: I don’t do marketing. I’ve never hired any marketer, and for the past year or more I’ve not even advertised any of my books. The only advertising I get is by word of mouth. Yes, I sometimes – but not always – put a notice in one of the infrequent entries in my blog, and I sometimes, but not always, make a mention of a new book in the two writers’ forums of which I’m a member. Other than that, nothing. I’m lazy, know nothing about marketing, and don’t want to spend the energy finding out about it when I could be writing.

So, because Amazon alleges that suspect accounts have borrowed my book through Kindle Unlimited, I’m in danger of losing my account with Amazon. I use the word alleges, because Amazon up front refuses to give any details on their ‘investigation’. At first I found myself just sitting there, stunned. Then I looked up my stats. I’d sold three books so far in April, and had 3000 page reads in nine days. What kind of manipulation was that? Like a fool, I asked.

Why do I use the words ‘like a fool’? Because we can rarely get any sort of a straight answer when dealing with Amazon KDP. I asked, “What sort of manipulation?” I got the reply that they rechecked my account and stand by their determination; I will not be paid for illegal page reads.

See what I mean? I didn’t ask them to assess the status of my account or to reinstate my page reads. For the leader of a multi-billion dollar industry, you can’t seem to hire anyone for KDP who can read and understand a simple sentence in plain English.

I keep daily records of my sales and pages read through Amazon-provided KDP reports. After receiving this letter, and conferring with other authors with whom I share certain authors’ forums, I discovered that the letter would refer to my March totals, not my April month-to-date. I checked my March figures. Of the 24,829 Kindle Pages read (from the daily reports), I find that Amazon has now removed 15,924 or 65%.

As the book which constituted over 80% of my previously counted page-reads contains upwards of 750 Kindle Pages, I have to suspect that your company believes that I contracted marketers to “read” a grand total of 21 copies during a 31 day span, grossing me some $72 (approx). You must think I engage the bottom of the barrel marketers.

Amazon has a great reputation with respect to customer service. In fact, I’ve enjoyed just such great service. Last year, a CD I ordered from one of your 3^rd party suppliers in Germany failed to show up in the stated time – in fact, I didn’t complain until some weeks after that time had passed, wanting to give the CD every opportunity to show up. Within hours of my finally making a complaint, I received a choice of them sending a second CD or giving me my money back. I chose to receive the second CD. It took 8 weeks to arrive – but I don’t blame Amazon or the 3^rd party retailer, because the postmark on it showed that the German Post Office had received it only 3 days after my complaint (and one of those days was a Sunday and Monday was New Years Day, as well). It was marked Luftpost (airmail). So, I blame the Post Office – either the German PO, the Canadian PO, or both. (The first CD never did arrive.)

Yes, you are rightly proud of your company’s customer service. However, the concern that you and your company show to your customers falters somewhat when dealing with your content providers – those of us who write books and place them in the Kindle Store and especially in Kindle Unlimited.

When I began providing content to Amazon in 2010, things were simple. If someone liked the presentation of an author’s book, they bought it outright or read the sample and then bought it. The author then collected the royalty. If the customers didn’t like our presentation or the sample, they didn’t buy it, and we received nothing. And, finally, if the book did not live up to their expectations, they returned it for a full refund and again we received nothing.

There existed no way to scam the system to get more royalties than we deserved. Customers either bought our books or they didn’t. They bought short books, long books, epics. They either paid the price we set – or they didn’t buy. No one had a valid complaint over length or price; if they didn’t feel they got value for money, they didn’t buy the book or they returned it. The only scamming that occurred came from a very tiny minority of readers who bought books and then returned them on a regular basis. Some authors noted that book after book of theirs got purchased and then returned, in order. This suggested a multiple returner. We lived with it.

Then came Kindle Unlimited. KU started out and remains an irredeemably and irretrievably broken system. Its terms and make-up were almost created with the interests of scammers in mind, and it continues to provide them with the means and opportunity to – let us not mince words – steal money from legitimate authors. That went for the original iteration of KU and every iteration since then.

We legitimate authors don’t know what to do. We can only complain, but that rarely gets us anywhere. We hate scammers even more than Amazon does. They steal our money, not Amazon’s. We hate the manipulation of rank that goes on. We believe in value rising to the top. We work very, very hard to provide the best reading entertainment we can. So, yes, we hate scammers. And, at times, we try to do something about it.

Example: One scam entailed putting up books full of repeated sentences, paragraphs, or short chapters – thousands of pages worth of repeated verbiage. A poorly-made cover and an enticing, though totally inaccurate description, accompanied the publication of these books. The authors in one of my groups spotted them, and we counted something like 40 obvious scam books in Amazon’s top 100. Eight “authors” with five books each. If a scammer had someone “read” one of these books (with 10,000 pages or more by my estimate), he’d make $50 for that one read.

I took it upon myself to report this to Amazon. All I wanted was an e-mail address to send the details to. Unable to find such on the Amazon site, I went the route of “Chat”. Upon discovering that I was not a customer who had been cheated out of money, nobody really wanted to hear from me. Over the next 45 minutes (I still have the transcript), I got passed through 6 different representatives, the last of which agreed with me and gave me an e-mail address. Those books quickly got taken down. I thought I had done my part. It took time, caused frustration, but a blow had been struck for justice.

You’d think that your company would be happy. I thought so, too. On my own time, I had investigated and presented the evidence. Amazon had struck quickly to maintain its honour. All was well with the world!

Then it occurred again just days later – the exact same sort of scam. Another 20-40 books. Annoyed with the scammers, I sent a second e-mail, only to get told that I should use “Chat” – they wanted to subject me to another 45 minutes of pass-along only to get told in the end to use the email address I’d just used? Not a chance; I then gave up.

So, if I’m a customer, I get treated royally. If I try to help Amazon prevent fraud in KU, I’m a nuisance. I’m a nuisance, because this fraud didn’t really hurt Amazon financially – they had already set aside the pool of money – it only hurt legitimate authors who would receive less for their page-reads.

We legitimate authors hate scammers with a passion. But then, Kindle Unlimited – as well as being a haven for scammers – is something of a scam in itself.

The contract we sign with KU gives Amazon exclusive right to sell and lend out our books; we can place them on no other platform. For this, Amazon undertakes that they will pay us per kindle-page read (present edition of KU). However, it turns out that Amazon does not have the ability to accurately determine how many pages get read. Scammers depend upon this weakness for their scams to bring in the money they steal from legitimate authors.

Authors have imaginations. You might consider possession of such as a prerequisite for the trade. We’re curious, inquisitive. Thus, when things seem just a little off, we investigate and talk among ourselves. At first we accepted Amazon’s word that they would pay us for pages read at face value. Then we noted strange things, and began experimenting. The result: we have determined that if someone borrows a book, downloads it to their Kindle reader and then turns off the wireless, bad things can happen. If that person then reads the book through – every page – but then returns to page one before again turning on the wireless and syncing with Amazon, the author gets credited with only one page read. This, in effect, is Amazon stealing from us. Amazon uses our content to entice readers to KU, promising to pay us for each page read, then paying us less than ½ cent for an entire book read – no matter how many pages.

I have often seen my page reads tick up by one page. [Let’s face it; I’m not a heavy hitter. I don’t sell a lot of books, and I don’t get hundreds of thousands of pages read per month – or per day – like some do. So, I can note this sort of thing better than more popular authors might.] And seeing my stats tick up by one page, I wonder if someone read one page of my book before putting it down, or if someone read through my whole book and then returned to the beginning before syncing with Amazon. Did I get my half-cent for one page, or did I get paid a half-cent for seven hundred and fifty pages? Did Amazon pay me justly according to contract, or did Amazon scam me out of three dollars? I don’t know, and Amazon relies on non-transparency to ensure that we don’t have more than the minimum amount of information useful to finding out.

KU’s lack of transparency doesn’t stop there.

When it became obvious that scammers were getting the monthly “All-Star” awards, and authors made this clear in blogs, in posts on forums, etc., Amazon’s solution to the problem seemed to be to make it more difficult … no, not more difficult to scam an “all-star” status, but more difficult to see the results of the scamming. Amazon stopped publishing the names of the winners, making it even less transparent.

When Amazon reacts to problems, it often uses a shotgun, where a rifle should be used – in other words, the solution often hurts the innocent as well as the guilty – often more than the guilty, because the guilty, if caught, simply abandon that account and start another. We legitimate authors cannot do that – or, if we do, we lose all books previously published.

Take this present situation. I, who have absolutely no control over who reads my books, find myself in danger of losing my account. Why? Because someone Amazon considers a scammer has borrowed them. I didn’t ask anyone to; I didn’t pay anyone to; I didn’t do anything. And my sales figures should show this to be the case. I had an average of 800 pages read per day in March (initial figures) of which you claim an average of 513 per day were scammed. No scammer worth his salt would try for a $2.50 per day payout.

I put in a lot of work to write a novel. It takes me a minimum of about 400 hours work to get one ready for publishing – I’m not fast. Sometimes it works out; other times I get a flop. One of mine (which I still believe is a fine novel) has sold 103 copies in almost 4 years. That’s $200 for 400 hrs work, or $0.50/hr. Not near minimum wage. A scammer puts in a couple hours work and nets thousands. We legitimate authors don’t think this is fair. But that’s what KU invites, what by its very composition it has always invited.

As I said, I don’t advertise – not any more. I did try AMS, but it gave me a very poor return on investment. And AMS has authors bid against each other to get what the Amazon algorithms once gave for free. The last time I tried for an ad, the bid went up over $1 per click. I think I got about 1 impression and no clicks before I gave up. At $1 per click, I would need a 50% success rate to barely break even. In fact, more likely I’d be paying Amazon more than my book is worth for the privilege of finding a reader. And Amazon knows that and still operates AMS like this. If I were to pay those readers a dollar each from my own pocket to read my books in KU, I’d make money – but that would be scamming, and I’d lose my account. So, doesn’t that make Amazon Marketing Services somewhat of a scam in itself as well?

To finish, I’m threatened with termination of my account for no valid reason; AMS doesn’t work for the author; KU is filled with scammers, and the innocent are tarred with the same brush by what? association? by the fact that alleged scammers may actually have read our books?; Amazon doesn’t seem to care who they damage with their shotgun attacks; Amazon actually scams us by not paying us for pages read – because they don’t know how many pages are read, and they knew they didn’t know this from the introduction of Kindle Unlimited. Yet they said that they did, and made a contract with us on that basis.

To protect my account, you have forced me to withdraw all my books from Kindle Unlimited when their present terms finish (one’s turn was up today – my best earner – and it’s out, the others should be gone by the end of the month). I can’t stop anyone from borrowing my books if I leave them in – I have no control over that aspect – and if the wrong people continue to borrow them, I may lose my account. I understand: your game; your rules (even though they are generally undefined publicly, and the internal definitions change at a seeming whim and without notice).

There is much more I could say, but this letter is long enough as it is.

So, if you can, sir, please tell me one good reason that I or any other legitimate author should endanger our accounts by maintaining any books in KU? (I already know why scammers should: they get our money – and in large amounts.)

D. A. Boulter.

PS: As I’m not sure you’ll ever get to see this, I’ll be posting it to my blog as well, as an open letter to you. But don’t worry, I only have about 20 or so followers. Hopefully someone else will pick it up – word of mouth.

[Re-blogging or posting of this letter permitted with a link to the original.]