General News, Updates, ETC (Cross-Posted with Patreon)

Good morning, folks!

First, I’m cured. Hooray! I started getting back into the saddle yesterday, and today, I’m pleased to report I have obtained actual human status.

I’m going to hammer out as much as I can in as short of a period of time as possible.

In case you missed it, Booked for Theft is available in the Patreon store and at all major retailers.

Audiobooks:

Hearth, Home, and Havoc is now available in the Patreon store.

Serial Killer Princess is now available in the Patreon store.

Whatever for Hire is now available in the Patreon store.

Burn, Baby, Burn is now available in the Patreon store.

A Chip on Her Shoulder is now available in the Patreon store.

Murder Mittens is now available in the Patreon store.

Catnapped is now available in the Patreon store.

Plaidypus is now available in the Patreon store.

In case you missed it, Grave Affairs is available in the Patreon store and has been distributed to all major retailers. Note: Kobo is not cooperating. Customer service has been involved. It will be on Kobo eventually… I just have no timeline. It depends on customer service.

Upcoming audiobook: A Light in the Dark is currently in production, but the narrator is ill and will be delayed for a few weeks while she recovers.

Upcoming eBook release: Prince of New York

Due to illness and moving, there is a chance I might bump Prince of New York by a few weeks, but I’m hoping to avoid that. I hate bumping releases. It stresses me out even more than stressing to meet the deadline. (I MUCH prefer just being on time.) If I MUST push it, I will. If I don’t have to, I’m much happier.

I have been working on some major overhauls on my website, thesneakykittycritic.com; there has been major changes to the menu system, which should hopefully make it easier for everyone to find my books.

Google Play:

Google Play’s eBook collection is current excluding pre-orders. Moving forward, I will try to stay current with Google Play, but the reality is, Google Play makes me maybe $20-30 a month, so the time investment issues (their system likes causing me problems) versus return-on-investment are a tiny bit skewed.

However, with the entire collection now live on Google Play, I’ll be giving the platform a second chance to see if things improve.

Please note that I have reached out to my distributor on the audiobook side of things to try to get things fixed there, as most of the audiobook collection seems to be missing.

That part of things is out of my hands.

Campfire:

I recently added a new eBook vendor to my list. Campfire is a fun writing to publication platform, and the operators reached out to bring my books into their ecosystem. So far, I like them. Their team has been very helpful. If you’re looking at alternative vendors, you can check out Campfire.

Concerns with Amazon’s Revocation of Licenses for eBooks

I know a lot of people are concerned Amazon will be taking their eBooks and audiobooks away. I just wanted to spend a few minutes to explain a few pertinent details and showcase how you can have a bit more control over your purchases.

1: all digital products are licensed. When you purchase directly from me (such as on the Patreon store), your purchasing a license that you can keep your eBook into eternity. It’s a “one purchase, one person” type of license. Honestly, I don’t give a crap if the book is passed around to members of the household, etc. Just don’t pirate the book. (AKA, if you want to give the book to a friend, please buy them their own copy unless you opt to delete your copy when you pass it on.) (And yes, you can absolutely do that, I don’t care.)

Patreon subscribers get a free copy. If Patreon subscribers opt to purchase a copy from the store, they can then give their free copy to a friend! One person, one copy. (Super simple.)

2: Amazon typically yoinks books if the book is in violation of their terms and conditions, Federal law/copyright law, or so on.

One example of a yoink I can think of is that someone wrote erotica involving a young teen and an adult. (It was not paranormal with fast maturing races, etc. It was a contemporary “romance” involving the rape of children for adult entertainment purposes.) This book was revoked from sale, the book was removed from accounts, and so on.

Why?

This is against Federal law, child exploitation laws, and so on.

The author’s account was permanently banned, and criminal charges, if I recall correctly, were filed.

Personally, I feel the author should have been yeeted directly into the sun, but I am heavily against the exploitation and sexual abuse of children. (As mentioned above, I do not have a problem with fast maturing magical races if the person, at the time of engaging with another consenting person, was considered to be a fully fledged adult at the time of their engagement.)

I DO have a problem with authors writing adult entertainment exploiting children.

But what happens is that authors start telling people how Amazon is removing files WITHOUT mentioning why.

This creates panic among readers.

In reality, the removal of eBooks and licensed material is rare, but ALL vendors will do it in the case of legal violations, including copyright infringement/stolen works, works violating Federal law (child pornography), and so on.

However, for those of you who are concerned about being able to keep your books that I have penned, you have two vendors you can work with: Patreon and Smashwords. Both pay me approximately the same rate, which is great! Even better, YOU control your content. Smashwords will email you a file, which you can then download and upload onto your kindle devices through the send to kindle website.

Please note that the Patreon eBook collection is still a work in progress, and I’ll be uploading older eBooks as time and energy allows. The Smashword collection is currently completely.

Beyond that, I’m gearing up to move next month, after which things should settle down and become far more pleasant for the Blain Household. Wish us luck. We are going to need it.

~R.J.