A Thing About #Scribd #publishing

Last week I posted about leaving Kindle Unlimited (Amazon's book subscription service) on the 15th July, although not because of the new payment scheme. Instead, KU had failed to achieve my hopes for it in other respects. I was getting borrows at Scribd that paid me a set rate, and I'd just uploaded my titles to Oyster (another book subscription service where you can also buy the book). Things looked peachy.

The very next day, Smashwords and Draft2Digital sent out emails to say that Scribd were dropping pretty much all of the romance titles listed on their site. 

From D2D's CEO:

"As we all know, the concept of a subscription service for books is extremely new. There are several models on the market now for effectively monetizing subscriptions, and none of them exactly matches what we’re used to from traditional sales royalties. As the market experiments with different approaches, there are bound to be some missteps and false starts along the way. In fact, we should expect this business model to evolve even more in the near future.

Scribd took a significant risk putting in place a model that paid authors the same amount as a retail model for each book read by a subscriber. As we all know, romance readers tend to be incredibly avid readers. In trying to cater to this voracious readership while under this progressive payment model, Scribd has put itself in a difficult place. In a bid to better balance these operating expenses, Scribd is immediately slashing the volume of romance novels in its subscription service.

If you are receiving this email, then you are a Draft2Digital author who has published books in the romance genre to Scribd. This means that some or all of your romance novels are likely going to be delisted from their service today. (Books that are priced at free will not be removed.)

While a large number of romance novels will be removed from Scribd, it isn’t all of them. We aren’t privy to the exact guidelines Scribd is using to decide which romance novels will remain, and it’s our understanding that they remain in flux at Scribd. However, over the coming days, we will be working closely with Scribd to resolve the exact criteria and share them with you so that you’ll have the opportunity to restore all of your titles to the service. 

Please Note: If you write in other genres, understand that those books will not be affected by this policy change.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and assure you that we are working with Scribd to explore alternative solutions to this challenging problem, always searching for new terms that could restore our full catalog to their service. 

Believe me, this situation is just as difficult for Draft2Digital as it is for you. We also stand to lose a significant portion of our revenue due to this change. More importantly, we regret that we couldn’t give our authors more notice, but unfortunately we were informed quite late in Scribd’s decision-making process. It has been our highest priority throughout these discussions to preserve as many of your books in the service as possible, and we will continue to pursue that goal going forward."

You can also read a blog post by Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, HERE. His recommendation right now is not to leave Scribd. *snorts*
~
Of course, this isn't the fault of SW or D2D, who are also going to suffer as a result. Why has this happened? Because romance readers are voracious and Scribd are losing money over it. I don't think cutting the titles is a good solution (ignoring my own disappointment at losing a venue that was paying me a good rate, especially compared to KU). If they cut romance titles, the romance readers will leave. At the moment, none of my titles have been culled but since Scribd has since said they will 'rotate' romance titles, it could happen any time. I've now got to decide whether to leave things as they are, pull my titles as protest, or relist my romance titles without the R label should they get pulled, risking the ire of readers who don't like all those girl cooties and kissing, having lost my main audience (fortunately - or perhaps not - several of my stories have romantic elements rather than full blown romances). Problem is, my biggest seller was my time travel romance Keir. I can only assume that listing it as space opera has so far saved it.

But there's another issue. Many of my fellow authors found their paid titles being pulled, while their FREE ones remained. WTF?! So Scribd is essentially charging their readers to read books that are totally FREE through other vendors. Outrageous? Completely. Why the heck should you pay a subscription fee to read free books while being denied the full choice of a range of titles Scribd would actually have to pay for? That seems unfair on readers and authors both.



I understand that Scribd is a business and that the aim is to make money, and not lose it. But this seems such an extreme, knee-jerk reaction. I don't fathom the logic. Of course, one alternative is for them to stop paying authors as much, a tactic already employed by Amazon with KU and using a general fund, the division of which decides how much is paid by borrow (now complicated by their pay by page read scheme, which literally makes my head ache trying to work it out and another reason I'm just going to steer clear). It seems every time something of this nature happens, it ends up hurting authors. 

Once again, just as it seemed I might actually be able to start making a living wage from this writing thing, another door slams shut. Suddenly exclusivity at Amazon doesn't seem such a high price, with over 90% of my sales there and other retailers falling by the wayside. Just this week I tried dropping the price of my novella When Dark Falls to try and get it moving, but to no avail. It's enough to make me seriously reconsider if I'm ever going to get anywhere.

But as I've said before, I'm a stubborn woman, and publishing is in a constant state of flux. I'm still writing, still selling books, and still getting mostly positive reviews. I'm not going to let another set back...well, set me back, lol. Guess I'll hang in here a bit longer and see what comes of this latest upheaval in the publishing world...


You can also read Greta's post on the Scribd palaver HERE which also covers Amazon's latest (and in most people's view harshest review cull).


Update: As of this morning, all but one of my titles have disappeared from Scribd. I'm going to be removing that and all my links to Scribd as a result. I knew it was too good to be true.



Status update

Keir's Fall is still with my editor. Right now I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo with a target of 30K spread across several short stories that need completing, including a superhero story and a fun space opera. Depending how it goes, I may also be finishing up a sequel to my paranormal romance short Hallow's Eve, and two unfinished SFRs that I really should have got done by now. The problem with not having a publisher and set deadlines is I start to drift. Camp NaNoWriMo at least gives me a deadline to work to.

Keir's term at NetGalley is over, and while I had no idea what to expect or what might be considered average, I was surprised and pleased by the results. Keir had 66 downloads, currently resulting in 13 reviews (with a range of ratings, but including one review at Geeks In Highschool where the reviewer totally got what I was aiming for. Love it!). I was also told that I'd had a good response and review rate. Again, I'm surprised and pleased by that news. My awesome cover by Danielle Fine also got 36 thumbs up and only 3 thumbs down. ^_^
At the moment I'm considering putting Tethered up there, but I'm not yet sure. When I have to decide whether to spend my budget on the possibility of reviews or putting it toward artwork/edits for another title, it's a tough choice!

Happenings

Next week Liza O'Connor is my guest here at Spacefreighters Lounge with her new and debut scifi release The Gods of Probabilities. You can read my review for it HERE. 

It's the final week of the SFR Brigade Summer Cafe, and we have our second and last round of Space Opera. Go HERE to follow along and enter for the grand prize bundle. 

I have less than two weeks before my not so little monsters break up for the seven week summer holidays. I'll be posting a few teasers from my books over those weeks, but you can also follow along on Tumblr from the 22nd July to see how I transformed a pair of Monster High dolls into my characters Keir and Quin - I'll be posting each Wednesday (providing I've figured out the scheduling correctly!). I'll also be posting my summer reads and reviews over at Critique de Book HERE every Wednesday from the 22nd.

Stay shiny!

Androids or Aliens - Which Would You Pick? The SFRB Summer Cafe #scifirom #giveaway

Welcome to my post for the Androids and Aliens menu in the SFR Brigade's Summer Cafe! If you like dishy aliens or delectable 'droids, this IS the post you're looking for. ;)

I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and the supernatural with a romantic soul. And I'd like to introduce you to some of my heroes and heroines from my scifi romance universe, a wonderful place full of diversity. First, I'd like you to meet Soren, a sub-avatar on the luxury resort of Venus Ascendant space station. In other words, a very specialized android...

"Marie stared at him…at it. She’d heard about the VA avatars but never been so close to one. She’d learned from the space station’s blurb that the main AI took the form of a young Indian woman called Ganesa, spoken of with as much reverence as the bronze-cast deity behind her. This particular avatar had been crafted into a ruggedly handsome, if stereotypically human, male. Thick blond hair left a shade too long framed his face perfectly; darker brows arched over eyes the most glorious shade of deep blue she’d ever seen. He was broad shouldered and athletic, and the thin, snug-fitting one-piece in gray outlined the welldefined musculature of his torso in a way no doubt intended to draw attention and tease the imagination of potential clients. A shapely hint of what lay beneath without full disclosure, like the metallic foil used to cover chocolate treats. Also a complete contrast to the man she’d hoped to see, and all too perfect to be real." 
~from Terms & Conditions Apply

Too artificial? How about a cloned assassin, capable of walking through walls and killing with a kiss?

"Mirsee.
Flawed Su. Terran co-delegate and bondmate to Zander D'joren. All through her debriefing, the hologram had stared at Tyree as it hovered above the data pad, the face a perfect mirror of her own. As she expected it to be. Her long, straight black hair was worn differently, of course, and her expression far more placid than Tyree had felt at that moment, but essentially her double in all respects. Blue-eyed, black-skinned, a narrow face with a pointed chin, high arching eyebrows and a broad, curving forehead. The only fascination now was the knowledge that both she and her deceased twin came from bonded Inc-Su parents rather than a single entity. 
Could she see either of those unknown parents in their shared face if she stared hard enough? Unlikely. The majority of Inc-Su were similar in form—tall and lanky, with slight variations in coloring—as all those in Refuge were cloned from the thirteen council members. The only thing she could be reasonably sure of was she wasn't one of M'roc's grouping. She'd seen those around before and they were unmistakable with their heavier build, brown eyes, and caramel skin." 

~from Tethered

I guess cloning still means technically man-made. How about someone alien? While my hero Keir isn't technically an alien (on his world, even another human arriving on the planet is viewed as otherwordly) his unusual appearance is due to a trace of alien DNA in his bloodline that had an unfortunate affect on his skin, resulting in him being named a demon and cursed by his backward society.

"Muted sunlight flashed from a blade in motion. Quin wriggled in panic, expecting a fatal strike on her companion’s undefended back. Instead, the sound of ripping cloth filled the air as Caiman slashed the robes and rags into useless tatters, stripping Keir’s head and back to reveal the so-called demon underneath.

For a moment, Quin stared. No. No, it can’t be...

Her chest locked tight, and her blood went cold. Now, too late, she understood the nickname given to him and how the legend had misled her into believing the Blue Demon might be the sentiac she’d sought. His bare torso was the rich blue of an evening sky, his long, unkempt hair a knot of black curls tangled at the nape of his neck. Deep black tattoos, resembling some form of runic lettering, were carved into every inch of his skin. No monster, but no normal man either." 
~from Keir, Book One of Redemption

And that's barely skimming the surface! If you'd like to meet another of my alien heroes, you can pick up Tales from the SFR Brigade anthology for FREE by going HERE, and meet Tevik in Imprint (psst, it's the first story in the book), as well as more androids, aliens, and intrepid humans in the other seven stellar stories included. Book Two of Keir will be releasing later this year, and if you don't want to sign up to my newsletter you can just click Follow on my Amazon page (just under my author photo) to be notified when it's available.

In the meantime, another treat for you. Since a reviewer once compared part of Keir to the film Blue Lagoon, I felt the drink of the same name would be the perfect accompaniment while you read. 

What you'll need:

2oz Vodka
1oz Blue Curacao
Lemonade
Ice
Cherry for garnish

Add ice to the bottom of the glass. Pour in the vodka and Blue Curacao. Top up with lemonade and mix all the ingredients together. Garnish as desired and serve chilled.

© Dana Rothstein | Dreamstime Stock Photos

And now for the bonus prize. You can win a choice of either two of my short stories (Terms & Conditions Apply, a scifi romance featuring one of my awesome androids, and No Angel, a futuristic urban fantasy) or my scifi romance novella Tethered (a cloned succubus-like assassin and a grieving human diplomat take on a race of feline aliens set on wiping them out). Tell me whether you'd rather have an android made to your personal specifications or a handsome alien to whisk you away to the stars! Leave a comment with your email addy for a chance to enter. And don't forget to fill in the rafflecopter too - my scifi romance novel Keir is part of the ebook bundle being given away for this week's Summer Cafe, as well as hopping along to the other blogs listed below to see more!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mad, Marvellous May - Pippa's Journal #giveaway

Despite the humungous amount of work I had scheduled for myself for May, it has honestly been my best month ever. Probably my most stressful, chaotic, and overloaded as well, and for those reasons alone not one that I'd like to repeat. But the good stuff? Yeah, that's been great. My sales have beaten any and all previous records, though I'm certainly not hitting the NYT best seller lists or anything. Still not making even minimum wage. 

To recap, my publisher closed on the 1st May, taking down five of my titles with it - three novellas and two short stories, one of the latter barely a few days old. It left me with just one novel still with a small press, and two free short stories and three other paying shorts self published, none of which paid me more than a few cents a month. On a good month, I'd sell a title maybe every other day. ONE title. And with the shorts only earning me $0.52 each. >_<

A Science Fiction Romance Novel
Goodreads | Available from...
Amazon | All Romance eBooks
Kobo | iTunes | Scribd | B&N 
Google Play | Smashwords
Print available from... 
Amazon | B&N | CreateSpace

I'd already scheduled to re-release my debut novel Keir on the 7th May - I'd had the rights back for over a year, and this was to be the first full length novel I'd ever self published. But suddenly on top of that I had five more titles down that I wanted - and needed - back out.

If not for the generosity of my ex-publisher, I probably couldn't have done it. Or at least not for months, if not years. Between them allowing their authors to keep and use the edited versions of our books and selling us our cover art at a discount (publishing logo removed), and with huge thanks to my cover artist and editor Dani Fine, it's mostly been a case of time to restore four of my BP/LP titles. (Well, there were unexpected costs too, but it could have been worse). 

And I've done it. Five books back up at online retailers in less than five weeks. Well, Tethered is still awaiting upload at Smashwords and Google Play, but I was supposed to be on HOLIDAY last week. Between the 7th and 31st of May, I have done: two cover reveals, five re-launches, a print release, and organized a six week online blogging event for June/July. That included uploading five books to six separate retailers EACH, and a new listing on Goodreads with a free downloadable pdf chapter, plus organizing seven weeks of blog posts, inlinkz and rafflecopters, plus graphics, for over 40 authors.

Yes, I'm still sane. Mostly...

But the most marvellous thing about May has been the reception for Keir's return and the sales. While I don't get three figure sales per day like the really successful authors I see, I did hit three figures for the month, which I've never done before. Ever. In fact, I sold as many titles this month as I'd normally sell in a YEAR! Over 90% of them were at Amazon, and 80% of those were for Keir. A book I've re-released and that was my best seller while out. In a month, I've sold more than half as many again of Keir than I originally sold in the entire 19 months it was first out. And I've no idea why. Marketing has always been a mystery to me, even when I've tried to analyze and organize it. I'm still none the wiser.

And it drives me totally nuts that I still have NO IDEA WHY?! There are things I've done differently this time, but I've done no more marketing than with my other titles. I've been a few new places, wrote out a relaunch plan and schedule, but nothing that I can point to and say 'that did it'. In truth, I've probably marketed less (though I had some very awesome promo pics created by Dani Fine that I used to count down to release). Keir did get a new cover (though the old one was popular), a new tag, a new blurb, new editing, and gained an extra 11K. It also got new tags on the retailers, and Amazon now has a Romance>Science Fiction category that it didn't before. Perhaps ALL these things have contributed. I don't know. But I'm certainly not going to complain about it.

At least now I'm back on track for 2015, though with a modified schedule. Keir's Fall has officially gone to my editor this week with a possible November release (at last!). I plan to release a side story set between the two early next year, with a related story in June 2016. I'll be working on book three next year too (BTW, it's written and clocking in at 75K, but needs a huge overhaul). The planned five books of the series will be released over the coming years, and there may be more side stories. There will also be at least one more Venus Ascendant story to come, since my sales have provided enough for me to get edits and artwork for that on top of the other Keir books. 

So thank you for buying Keir. I hope you'll be happy to know you've helped hugely toward publishing the rest of the books in the series and made a lot of the recent traumas far less likely to leave me with nightmares. ^_^

While I make no promises for anything else - one thing this year has taught me is that any far advanced planning needs to come with caveats for potential disasters - is there something else you'd like to see from me in the next year? I'm open for suggestions as to what to work on for my November NaNoWriMo project...

Happenings

The first week of the SFR Brigade Summer Cafe kicked off yesterday with the Space Opera group! As well as recipes, excerpts and a grand prize giveaway each week, there are also a few prizes up for grabs on the individual blogs, so well worth visiting them all to see if you can pick up some bonus goodies. This week's offering is:

You can find out more by visiting the Brigade blog HERE.

Tomorrow is the second book birthday for my YA scifi adventure Gethyon. In those two years he's been a SFR Galaxy Award winner for Best Psychic Talent, and a 2015 EPIC eBook Award finalist in the science fiction category. ^-^

YA Scifi Novel
GOODREADS | Available from...
BURST | Omnilit | B&N
Amazon | Smashwords

And to celebrate the re-release of Keir in oh so beautiful print, I'm currently running a Goodreads giveaway for one copy, open until the end of June.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Keir

by Pippa Jay

Giveaway ends June 30, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to Win

Lastly, Keir is also available to request for review on NetGalley HERE. This is my first tine using NG, so I'm really nervous about it.


Next week I'm hosting a guest post here by the lovely Sofia Grey, and I'll be trading days with Laurie Green for the 22nd June, when I'm part of the Androids and Aliens menu for the SFR Brigade's Summer Cafe. Woo hoo!

The Books Are Back! Pippa's Journal

Hi, my name is Pippa Jay, and I like trying to achieve the seemingly impossible... >.<

Update

So, my main publisher closed on the 1st of May, taking down five of my newest titles with it, while I'd had the rights back to my debut novel Keir since January 2014. After deciding not to re-release the final book I had with Breathless/Lycaon (Zombie Girl) and having already scheduled Keir for re-release in May AND with three of the titles in contests that required them being available to buy, I set myself the challenge of re-releasing five books in the space of one month. That's less than five weeks, or more than one book a week. *insert maniacally laughter here* I was also setting up the six week SFR Brigade Summer Cafe event at the same time, trying to coordinate over forty authors in different categories, each with their own inlinkz and rafflecopter codes.

But I love a challenge. And so, here we are almost at the end of May, and I have achieved my goal! It wasn't all plain sailing. Between copyright issues with Amazon, the slowness of Kobo, the often mindboggling difficulties of Smashwords, formatting issues at D2D and the PITA that is ARe (one day I will get an upload right on the first attempt), there were days I wanted to reconsider the whole going indie thing.

Have I mentioned how stubborn I am, though? Yeah. I am not a quitter. Right now I'm still waiting for a few retailers to finish publishing my scifi romance adventure Tethered after the new cover reveal Friday and when I started uploading it as well, but otherwise all the books I've had the rights returned to me for are now available again at some, if not all online book sites. And as a bonus, they're all at a lower price than previously. Yay!

Better still, the print proof for Keir arrived on Friday...and it's perfect! Well, I wouldn't expect anything less after Danielle Fine's work on it. ^_^ And you can now buy it from the CreateSpace estore HERE, or it will be coming to Amazon shortly, then further retailers over the next 6-8 weeks.

Add to that all seven weeks worth of posts for the SFR Brigade Summer Cafe are also written and scheduled to go live, which leaves me clear to help with any technical issues for participants, checking links, pimping it, and picking winners at the end of each week. Yahoo! Once again total chaos has been tamed into organized calm. Well, mostly. :P

So what's next? As well as running the Summer Cafe over June/July in collaboration with the SFR Station, Keir's Fall - the sequel to Keir - will be off to my editor. I'm hoping for a November release for that, but after putting myself under a tad too much pressure to get Keir out on the date I set, I'm not making an official release date until we get close to the end of the edits.
For July I'll be finishing off a superhero short during Camp NaNoWriMo for a proposed anthology to promote the female superhero in response to Marvel's continuing campaign to cut its female heroes from the merchandising. Grr!
August is my proposed holiday - I'd love to catch up on my reading, and I have some awesome books waiting that I've neglected for far too long - and summer holidays for my three monsters.
In September I have BristolCon, where I hope to have three or four of my titles in print (Tethered and Restless are definites, though with their old covers, and I have Keir. I'm currently debating whether to add my superhero romance When Dark Falls to my print options) and I've volunteered for my first ever panel. Public speaking? Eeeep!
Come October and I hope to have Keir's Fall close to release, and will be starting edits on a novella set between the two Keir novels to release early 2016. I haven't decided what to do for the November NaNoWriMo yet, though the options are overhauling book three for Keir, or a sequel to either When Dark Falls or Tethered. Decisions, decisions...
And December? Well, I have a winter solstice SFR short I'd love to release in time for Christmas, or there's another Venus Ascendant novella to go with Terms & Conditions Apply. With my current sales for Keir, financing either of those shouldn't be a problem for a change, but instead time constraints are now the issue...
So I'm probably looking at those two last projects as 2016 releases, along with book three for Keir, and a secret project I'm starting on in January for a June release. That should keep me out of mischief, right? ;)

Happenings

This week is half term holidays for my three little monsters, plus my hubs has booked the week off and it was a Bank Holiday Monday. So I'm mostly off the internet this week. Next week I officially begin the edits for Keir's sequel - Keir's Fall - and on Monday the SFR Brigade's Summer Cafe begins! Check out the SFR Brigade blog HERE for more details of the sumptuous feast of scifi romance we're preparing for you!