Some things you may not know

I was reading through various things related to my writing career today and I thought I would share them with you.  I think that there are some truths that authors assume readers know and it occurred to me that perhaps that isn't true at all.

So here we go.

1.  Unless we self-publish, we don't determine the price of our books.  In this day and age, it can be hard for a reader to know if an author self publishes and frankly it doesn't matter anymore. Some of the best authors out there are self-publishing their books. But I have yet to do so. I plan on doing this but haven't yet.  What does this mean? Well, one of the things that it means is that I don't determine the price of any of my books. That is set by the publisher and the book sellers.  Therefore putting in a review on amazon that you love my writing but that the 'author' would sell more books if 'she' lowered her prices is frustrating.  First of all, we have to make a living and we aren't, except in the case of free reads, working for free.  But, even beyond that, I've never set the price of my book except for one sale that the publisher was willing to work with me on and lowered a price for one week.  I can't control the prices of my books.  Also, reviewing it on amazon and saying you liked it because you got it for free--and you are not a reviewer sanctioned by the publisher--tells me you stole the book. This is an entirely different blog post but you cannot know how frustrating that is. You liked the book because you stole it? Oh dear.

2. The amount of control I get over the covers of my books varies. Some publishers give us a lot of input, some very little at all.  Reviewing my book and saying the author would do better if she used a different cover is as equally frustrating as the first point above. 

3.  I can't review books, not as Rebecca Royce anyway.  With very few exceptions, I can't go around saying that I don't like a book.  I once had an author I respected (who I had helped on more than one occasion) review my book on her blog and dislike it for a plot point she had misread.  That's right. She disliked the book for something that didn't actually happen in the book.  Talk about frustrating.  And even when I pointed it out to her, she didn't change the review. I don't believe in holding onto anger or frustration if I can let it go.  But I never forgot that and I won't do it. I'll publically talk about how much I like a book but I won't talk about the books I don't like.

4. Its very difficult for me to give you things for free.  Giveaways are special.  So when I give you an amazon gift card, sometimes more than once in a giveaway, and than you tell me in another contest six months later that you have never heard of me, I get sad.  I've clearly done something wrong. Maybe I need to work on branding. But I'd rather be writing and editing and daydreaming.

I guess that's it for today.  Not sure if this will be helpful for anyone or not.  But I just thought I'd share.  Peace!

RR