Right now, it's about 8AM. This whole thing has really fucked up my sleep schedule and given me some bad anxiety-related insomnia.
So. I was trying to sleep, couldn't, and checked my e-mail again for the hundredth time. My heart jerked pretty hard when I saw a new e-mail from Amazon. This is what I got.
Hello,
I’ve cancelled your KDP Select enrollment on your behalf.
Customers who have already borrowed your book can still read it until it's finished, returned, or their Kindle Unlimited subscription expires. As a result, you may see new Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) read appear in your reports until then.
See the KDP Select Enrollment Help page for more information:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3M9JQJV7RDER9
Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
Amazon.com
So...yay?
I still feel like I'm under threat, because all the KU page reads I've gotten so far could still trigger their bot or algorithm or AI or whatever the fuck it is that's seeking 'illegitimate borrow activity' with a fucking vengeance.
So I still feel like I'm living with a fucking shotgun aimed at my forehead.
I've checked, and all my remaining titles that were in the KU are now not. I'm honestly hoping that this will be enough to get me out of harm's way.
But, what comes next? Because obviously this has all been a pretty huge upset for my plans.
Well, my brain's still spinning, but I've got a few things I know for sure, and a few thoughts.
#1) I am for sure going to forge ahead with publishing my re-releases, although I've had a few thoughts on that. Namely, I think I'm going to hold some of them back, because upon further reflection, I've realized that I might actually want to just do a full rewrite of them. Not many of them, just a few. We'll see about that. These will continue to be released at 2.99$ in eBook, and 9.99$ in paperback.
#2) I am for sure going to press on with Demoness III and Parasexual. I will try to get these written and released by June, but given all that has happened and how little I've got written over the past week, I'm not sure I can promise this. But I will be working very hard on these two titles, they will be my primary focus.
#3) Now that I am not longer beholden to Amazon's exclusivity, I am planning on releasing my titles through Smashwords as well, which will then distribute them to a good number of other platforms, chief among them the Nook, and Kobo. Unfortunately, since I have less control over the formatting there, I can't promise they'll look as good as they do on Amazon, and am really just hoping that the cover and writing make purchases through other platforms worth it.
#4) I've gotten messages from a few people lamenting my pulling out of the Kindle Unlimited, as they are fans of my work, but cannot afford to buy all or even most of my books, which I completely understand. This has led me to start thinking about producing my own subscription based service. Essentially, what I'm thinking right now is that I'll create a new tier for my Patreon. For 10$/month, you'll get access to all of my books. I don't know how many people would be interested in that, but it would at least be a good experiment, I think.
Those are my main thoughts right now.
At this point, I just want to keep my head down, steer clear of any further false accusations, and just, you know, write. And be able to make people happy and make a living off of that.
That'd be great.