A Few Quick Updates

October 9, 2018 Misty Vixen

Hey, just thought I’d fill everyone in on a few things I’m doing and a few decisions I’ve come to.

So, first of all, I’ve got a friend who’s going to help me by editing my work, which I figure will be very helpful. Provided this works out and I’m not too demanding, I’m going to give them all my older works to look over, and new works from now on. Hopefully this’ll catch a lot of the little things that I miss. It’ll never be perfect, but better is good.

And because I need to look over anything that’s been edited by another person, this means that I’ll have to be looking over my entire catalog…again. I’m honestly hoping this is genuinely the last time I have to do this, and since that’s going to be happening, I’m going to take the opportunity to actually create a working timeline for my various universes.

With my paranormal and post-apocalyptic universes, I could do it right now, since there’s so little there right now. But with something like my fantasy and sci-fi universes, especially the fantasy one, I need to go back through and really examine everything. As a very rough notion, the order in which I wrote the stories is basically the timeline. I did try to put in some references to events in other books, but honestly, I should have been figuring this out more specifically. I don’t think most people really care all that much, but I know there are some dedicated fans who want to know, which is awesome, so I’ll be doing this as well.

This whole process is going to take quite awhile, and will be going on quietly in the background for several months at least.

Now, the bigger decision.

I have decided that I will NOT be re-writing Alien Harem & Valkyries. Instead, I’ll be re-releasing them as is (with new cover art/formatting though). The reason I’m doing this is because going back over Desire and Demoness and expanding them has taught me an important lesson: I DO NOT DO WELL WITH RETREADING OLD GROUND.

This expansion process has actually taken a pretty big toll on me. I’m having a really hard time with writing new material for Demoness right now. I think it’s probably coming out okay, but it’s kind of like running a marathon. It’s really frustrating. And it really just taught me that while at first I might enjoy the process of rewriting Alien Harem or Valkyries, it would quickly become a huge drain on me, and that’s actually rewriting entire NOVELS, not just writing some new material.

So, if you were looking forward to those, I am sorry, but I’ve learned that I really need to look forward to new material, because I actually have a LOT of ideas that I’m really eager to get to, and that holding them up just to rehash older material doesn’t make sense any longer.

As of right now, I’m kind of on approach to the home stretch of finishing up Parasexual 2. Probably another two weeks of writing, I think, we’ll see.

Almost done with the expansion of Demoness, just need to finish writing the final piece of new content, then finish editing the rest of the novel to make sure it all fits together. Then it needs to be edited, as well as Demoness II & III. Then they go up and get enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited!

I also got started writing the Demoness short that takes place after III but before IV. Got about a thousand words in last night. I don’t think it’ll be longer than maybe eight thousand words. Once Demoness is done, I’ll turn my full extra attention to that short. I’m so looking forward to having them both done and out. I suck at multi-tasking most of the time.

I'm Returning to the Kindle Unlimited

September 13, 2018 Misty Vixen

The first question I imagine is: Why? Why in the hell am I doing this?

There’s a few reasons.

Since the beginning, I’ve had hopes and aspirations. I’d like to say that getting anyone to buy or even read my work is enough, but that would be a lie. I’m not like those people who ask “Why does it always have to be about money, can’t you just be happy with the act of creation? You should be lucky that anyone has read your work, let alone paid for it.” Well, the answer to that question is, uh, the fucking world runs on money, and you need it to literally live.

Don’t get me wrong, I do write to be read, to make people happy, but I also need to make a living.

And for a long time, I actually was largely okay with making a living. That alone put me in probably the top 5% of every indie author who took a shot at writing as a job. Again, I was, and still am, extremely grateful that there are enough people out there who like me and my work that I can make this my job.

But since the beginning, I have had that vague idea of making a lot of money from writing. Like real money, you know? I don’t think I’ll ever be a millionaire. The idea still seems ridiculous to me. But then I finally began to achieve REAL success, making life-changing money. And you know what? I was able to actually do shit with that money. I gave my mom some money to help out with bills, I helped my friends out with some of their problems, I actually put money into a savings account, I was able to leave great tips.

To be honest, I’d make a lousy ‘conventional’ rich person. I don’t want a mansion, or even a really big house. I don’t want a new car that costs 50 grand. I don’t care about drugs. I’m not much of a vacation person. Obviously I’d like to have money to buy nicer things, but I also would love to be able to legitimately help people who need it, and life has proven to me time and again that by far the most effective way to help people is with money.

The amount of money I was making in April and May meant that I could do that.

In the months since the whole catastrophe, I’ve had a lot to think about, and this was the conclusion that I came to: I will never again achieve the level of success I saw without the Kindle Unlimited. Because of this, I am functionally living without the same hope that I used to have. As I said before, I was, and to a degree still am, thrilled to be making a living doing this. But there was always that sort of ‘real success is out there somewhere over the horizon if I just keep trying long and hard enough’ feeling to my life.

That’s gone now.

So my choices became these:

Stay out of the KU and settle for the fact that I’ve basically peaked, and this is as good as it’s going to get for the rest of my life. Sure, I might see some more success after many more years of plugging away, but that might feels far, far more diminished now, because Amazon clearly favors those in the KU. I think they even go so far as to not just give those in the KU preferential treatment, but actually suppress those who aren’t in it.
Go in the Kindle Unlimited, probably begin to see genuine success again, and live under a lot more stress because I am effectively playing Russian Roulette with my career. I still don’t trust Amazon. After what happened in May, I probably never will again. What happened before could happen again, and this time I might get terminated. But I might not. Maybe they actually changed some stuff in the backend, or maybe they’re actually trying to clean up, even a little. Or maybe what I’ve heard, that accounts don’t get terminated without a real human being getting involved.

So basically, I have to choose whether or not to live with hope. Hope is important. Making progress, achieving goals, doing things, these are all integral components to the human condition and to getting any kind of real satisfaction out of life.

I’d like to take a moment to say I don’t think I deserve massive success, or any success really. I’m more pointing out that clearly I’m capable of it (…if I get lucky enough…). I try to take ‘deserve’ out of the equation for my own life. I have a pretty low opinion of myself, and spent a long time feeling like a failure. I still do. But having actual, genuine facts that prove that I can actually succeed at writing has helped somewhat.

That’s my more personal reason I’m doing it, but I have another, probably bigger reason, and that is: the fans.

I received several messages from people telling me they wouldn’t be able to afford my titles unless they got them through the Kindle Unlimited. That was pretty unhappy news. I want to be available to people, and I definitely do want people to be able to read me. And being in the KU means that a shitload more people will be able to.

Sorry if this kind of rambling.

There are the reasons: I want more people to be able to read my work and I want to live my life at least thinking that it’s still trending gradually upwards…not down, and I want to help people.

So let’s get into the more practical side of things.

Part of the Kindle Unlimited deal is that any titles enrolled in the KU must be exclusive to Amazon. Which obviously means I won’t be able to publish them on any of the other platforms, nor will I be able to utilize my Patreon as I have been. So I’ll just say it here and now: If you are a 10$ Patron, you should either lower or remove the donation, since that tier will not be useful for much longer.

Now, as for how I plan on actually handling this whole thing.

I will be slowly reintroducing myself into the Kindle Unlimited. Paranormal Passions, when it releases on the 15th, will be uploaded to the KU. I’m doing this because I’m paranoid. While I still don’t have any real idea why I was threatened, I do think that some of it probably had to do with the INSANE success I was suddenly seeing. It probably didn’t look legit, even though stuff like this does happen legitimately.

(Seriously, Amazon is punishing authors for being successful? This whole thing is still goddamned ridiculous.)

Going forward, all new releases will be placed in the KU. And I’ll occasionally slip another of my already-published ones in, probably with a prioritization on Demoness, given that’s my flagship franchise.

That’s about it. Please, wish me luck. I’m playing Russian Roulette now.

If you have any questions at all, please ask. Either in the comments or send me an email. I will respond.

And to my fans, and readers, and supporters, seriously thank you. I obviously need to make a living and pay my bills, but having people actually read and even enjoy what I write is its own reward, and a massive one. I hope through my writing that I’ve helped you in some way, even if it’s just to pass the time, because you all have helped me in ways beyond measure.

Post-Crisis Update or How Amazon Quartered My Income For No Reason

August 4, 2018 Misty Vixen

In March of 2018, I had the worst month, sales wise, of my entire career since it had become financially viable in 2015.

In April of 2018, I finally managed to get some new cover art out that I had been holding onto for awhile, and also finally managed to release my first ever feature-length novel, DEMONESS II. At the same time, I also decided to try something I'd been waffling about for awhile. I took down the old, episodic versions of my series HELLCATS and re-released it as a novel with brand new cover art.

This created a perfect storm.

I began selling. First some, then a lot. Then, as April was beginning to close out, a metric fuckton of books. I was selling like crazy. To this day, I don't know what precisely did it. I think that mostly it was luck. Right books at the right time. That and being in the Kindle Unlimited probably helped a lot.

As I pressed on into May, I was still kind of dazed, but also ecstatic. It felt like finally, FINALLY, after years of desperate struggle, writing my fucking ass off, (I average about one novel per MONTH for three solid years), I was finally receiving what I had fucking earned. And I planned on capitalizing on that.

I published WOMEN OF THE WILD, a novel I had written and edited in late 2017 but was saving for later, figuring that now was the perfect time. I busted ass and got HELLCATS 2 out the door as fast as I could and got to work on preparing Hellcats 3 and Demoness III as well.

And then it happened. In the afternoon of May 10th, at around 4PM, I went to check on my sales numbers and suddenly discovered that I couldn't log in. I also checked my e-mail and found this message waiting for me.

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

Naturally, this sent me into a fucking panic. I responded to the best my ability...and they responded by taking down every single eBook I had ever fucking published in my entire life. I got a message back from Amazon the next day stating that they had decided to reinstate my account, but when I asked them about all my missing books, it took them a whole day to respond that it was a glitch and they would need five motherfucking days to 'look into it.'

Well, while I was initially waiting for that message back, I freaked the fuck out and ended up emailing Jeff Bezos, since in an interview he gave out his personal email address and claimed that he would personally review any problems that anyone had with Amazon.

Although to this day I never received a response from Jeff, or from that Amazon associate who claimed they'd get back to me within five days, my eBooks were put back up within 24 hours. So...that was nice at least.

But now I had a problem. That 'previous communication' they mentioned was from a weird little situation that had happened back in February of 2018. I'd noticed that ALL of my KU reads for the month had vanished. At first I didn't think much of it, I thought it was a glitch, but then I received a message warning me about 'reading or borrow activity originating from accounts attempting to manipulate Kindle services.'

I didn't know what the fuck they were talking about, and while at first they admitted that my reads had been taken in error, they never gave them back. So that second message I got was my second strike, which resulted in a suspension.

I was terrified that a third false positive would result in a flat-out termination, which would basically cripple me as a writer, if not outright kill my career.

Now, I did some research and determined that what was most likely causing this was this situation:

1) Some worthless piece of fucking shit scam artist writes some 'books', throws them up in the Kindle Unlimited, then creates a fake bot account to 'read' all of their books, so that they earn money for page reads.

2) In order to hide the fact that this is a fake account, they have their bot read other author's books to completion.

3) Amazon discovers the fake account, and decides to punish EVERYONE who has had a book read by that account.

No one knows for sure if this is what's happening, this is all just guesswork, because Amazon flat out refuses to give anyone a straight answer as to why they are being arbitrarily fucked over.

(Side Note: Yes, I understand the logic behind Amazon's refusal to give out information on this subject, because then the scammers could take that information and find new workarounds. I understand that, but people's accounts should NOT be suspended/terminated without an actual human being getting involved and they should NOT be taking this 'guilty until proven innocent' approach. It. Is. Wrong.)

Obviously, I was terrified that if whatever tripped up this bot the first two times with false positives did so a third time, Amazon would summarily execute my account despite the fact that I have never done anything shady or against the TOC.

For the record, not only have I never attempted to manipulate Amazon, the Kindle Unlimited, or my readers, nor do I ever have any intention to do so, I don't even know how to. Seriously, I'm not that smart, I just write stories about people having adventures and fucking, and I'm not even great at that.

I tried to come to Amazon with my concerns, but they literally stonewalled me. I never got ONE response to a few emails I sent asking what kind of guarantee they could give me of any kind of protection against this happening again, or even just some advice or help against preventing these false positives.

The thing is, I understand the need to protect the readers, and other authors, and the KU itself. I would actually be perfectly fine with surrendering any ill-gotten reads I may have gotten. I'd have no problem with that.

But when my entire career, my ability to earn fucking money, can be ERASED by a company that apparently does not give a shit about authors for literally no other reason than one of their overzealous and clearly broken bots or AIs falsely targeted me, well...then naturally I want to disassociate myself with the thing that can make that happen.

I.e. the Kindle Unlimited.

Because that is literally the ONLY thing this is about.

Finally, I sent them an ultimatum: Either promise me protection from this broken fucking bot of theirs, or pull EVERY one of my titles out of the KU immediately.

Although they did not respond to ONE of my polite requests for some kind of help, to make some kind of sense of what was happening, they responded to that one almost fucking immediately. And took everything out of the KU.

So I spent the next few months trying to just get on with my life and figure out where to go from here. I was also living in mortal terror that it would happen again, because although my titles were no longer available through the KU, those that had been borrowed before everything was pulled out were still in the libraries of the users who had borrowed them, and would remain so until they naturally fell out of the KU themselves.

In short, when you enroll a title in the Kindle Unlimited, it is on a 90-day lifespan. At the end of that 90 days, you can either choose to keep it enrolled, or pull it out. As of right now, some of my titles still aren't out yet.

My thought was that my books might still be in the libraries of fake accounts, and get read, AND TRIP UP THE FUCKING BOT AGAIN.

So far, that hasn't happened. I think I'm in the clear now, but it's hard to be sure. I'm still getting page reads here and there.

Naturally, this has given me a shitload of depression, anxiety, rage, insomnia, all that stuff. Demoness III was supposed to be done by the end of June, maybe early July.

I AM STILL NOT DONE WITH IT YET.

And it actually gets way worse. Not for me, but for a lot of other people.

I am not the only one this has been happening to.

Jan Stryvant was fucked over for no reason.

J. A. Cipriano's Amazon account was unceremoniously executed.

Michael-Scott Earle was ripped out of Amazon abruptly.

David Gaughran has been writing about this stuff for awhile now.

Here's a good article from Deanna's World talking more about this whole thing.

The same thing happened to A. D. McCammon.

That's who I could find off the top of my head. Apparently, there's a lot of others. And I've read a LOT of comments of pissed off customers who said they canceled their KU subscription in response to this shit.

Now, I don't know who is guilty and who is innocent, but based on the fact that I didn't do anything even slightly shady and I got nailed to the fucking wall by Amazon, I'm willing to bet that most of them who got slammed by this are innocent. (I do know that there's a lot of controversy surrounding Michael-Scott Earle regarding some either shady or unintelligent trademark attempts, and he called most indies stupid, but I still have no idea if he actually did anything wrong with regards to publishing practices.)

So what's Amazon's response to dozens, if not more, of innocent authors getting screwed by false positives and who knows how many people pulling out of the Kindle Unlimited and even a petition with over 1,500 signatures for Amazon to change it's policies towards Authors and KENP reads and another petition with almost 2,500 supporters to reinstate Michael-Scott Earle and J. A. Cipriano?

Nothing, basically. They stonewalled us.

So what's the fallout from this fucking disaster for me?

Well, in May of 2018, I made MORE THAN I DID FOR THE ENTIRETY OF LAST YEAR. Let that sink for a minute, because it still hasn't for me. In July? I made 1/4 of that. Now while that is still a decent income...it's looking like it's still dropping.

So basically, here's what happened. After 3 and 1/2 years busting my fucking ass, playing their game by their fucking rules, and writing like crazy, I finally succeed. Not through illegitimate tactics. Not through shady means. No bullshit, no trickery, no unsavory schemes.

I did it the fucking RIGHT way.

And my reward was all this shit, and to have it literally ripped away from me for no reason.

And Amazon doesn't give a shit.

Now, does this mean I'm fucked forever? Probably not. I'm still going to work very hard, write a lot of new novels, and try to make my readers happy and make a living doing the one thing I actually am even remotely good at and brings me any kind of happiness. I might even manage to get lucky again and make some real money again doing this. But how often does lightning strike twice?

This brings me to the last part of my update/recap/rant.

I'm sure there are people asking "Well why are you putting all your eggs in one basket? Why aren't you just publishing elsewhere?"

Well, for one, I am. And for two: Because Amazon has a fucking 80% share of the eBook market. They're the only ones who are actually doing it right. Talk to most other authors who've gone wide, ask them where most of their sales come from. They'll say Amazon.

Amazon almost effectively has a monopoly on the eBook game.

There's a story I once heard that was about a gambling man who was playing a game of cards in a small town, and he was getting fucked over badly. Very badly. Everyone could see that he was getting cheated. And someone asked him, "Why are you doing this? Why are you playing this game if they're cheating you so bad?" And the man just shrugged and said, "It's the only game in town."

Why am I still relying so heavily on Amazon? Why am I playing their game?

If you're looking to make an actual career out of writing and you aren't willing to get fucked over even worse by Big Publishing, then Amazon's functionally the only game in town.

Availability

July 8, 2018 Misty Vixen

This is just a quick little informational post.

Some of my titles are available through Smashwords, and I plan to release pretty much everything through there eventually. What some people might not realize is that Smashwords is actually a gateway platform. When I upload to them, they, in turn upload to like a ton of other sites. And even for people who do realize this, they might not realize just how many freaking sites Smashwords uploads to.

I sure wasn't until I actually looked into it. It's a lot!

Now, I'll only be listing five sites/platforms for my titles. These include: Amazon, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Smashwords, and iTunes. The reason why is because I don't want to get overloaded with links to over a dozen different platforms, and also because I think those are the ones that people use the most by far.

However, here are other places that I am and will be available! (NOTE: I don't even know what some of these are.)

Baker & Taylor/Follett
cloudLibrary
Diesel
Flipkart
Gardners Extended Retail
Inktera (formerly Page Foundry)
Library Direct
Odilo
Overdrive
Oyster
Scribd
Sony
Tolino

Again, I don't even know what half of these are. There's one called txtr that I just did a bit of research on and learned that it went bankrupt in 2015! Smashwords needs to update their list. Now, I have not personally checked out all of these sites/platforms. I can't even find some of them. This is just the list that Smashwords gave me. For all I know, they could be lying. (They obviously were about txtr.)

But if you are familiar with one or more of these, and use them, then you should be able to buy my books through them!

If you're concerned about what platform gets me the most amount of money per sale, actually, Smashwords does! But like no one buys through Smashwords, which I don't blame them. Next on the list is definitely Amazon. I get 70% of every digital sale, 60% of every paperback sale (after the cost of creating the paperback). But this is just for people who are a bit more conscious of that kind of thing. Wherever you get my work, I just hope you enjoy it!

The Misty Vixen Library Is Here!

June 19, 2018 Misty Vixen

Yes, it is finally here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, The Misty Vixen Library is basically my answer to the KDP Select. At its core, it's a subscription service.

If you sign up for my Patreon for the 10$/month option, you will gain access to my library of works. Not everything, though, not yet. But it is my goal to eventually have everything available through this.

(With a few exceptions. I won't be posting free shorts there because, well, they're freely available already. Also, Valkyries, since I plan to do a full rewrite.)

Now, to clarify what I mean by making these titles available through my Patreon. You have three options.

You can straight up read it right there on Patreon, as I've posted every story in its entirety.
You can download the story as a PDF.
You can download the story as a Kindle file. All you have to do to read it on your Kindle is to hook your Kindle up to your computer via USB, then drag and drop the file into the folder marked 'Documents' on your Kindle. And that's it!

So, what is currently available?

I have eight titles available right now, and one of them is currently exclusive, not yet published anywhere else! The titles are:

Exploration
My Undead Lover
Alien Harem Season 01
Alien Harem Season 02
Demoness
Royal Lust
Wanderlust
Wanderlust II *(Exclusive to Patreon right now)

Now, for the rest of 2018 at the very least I will be updating my Library with a minimum of two new novels per month, which will be available on Patreon before anywhere else.

Some might be asking the obvious question: Why aren't my other titles that are currently available part of this library? Well, basically this is out of an abundance of caution on my part. Although I have gotten Amazon to pull all of my titles out of the Kindle Unlimited, technically, a lot of them are still enrolled, even if they are not available in the store through the KU. I have to wait for them to naturally fall out of the KU. Or, at least, I think I do. Honestly, Amazon has fucked me over so bad that I don't want to risk anything further. However, everything should be completely out of the KU by mid to late August.

I'm not really sure how this is going to play out. This is an experiment. I'm doing this because Amazon fucked me over when they forced me out of the KU by falsely accusing me of attempting to manipulate the Kindle Unlimited, temporarily suspended me, and ripped every single title I've ever written out of the store for about two days, (something they claim is an accident, an 'accident' that cost me literally thousands of dollars), and, judging by my sales ever since being forced to pull out of the KU, it's obvious that it has done long-lasting, if not permanent, damage to my selling ability and visibility.

After years of struggling to make ends meet, and finally, FINALLY seeing actual, real fucking success, to have it ripped away from me for literally no reason and have the people who do it not fucking care at all, well...

That feels fucking awful.

I'm at least glad that I'm still doing pretty well, but fuck Amazon. Seriously.

So yeah, Amazon forced me to reconsider my options.

On top of that, pulling out of the KU has made several of my fans unhappy. I know it made me unhappy. I didn't want to do it. But Amazon could not promise that whatever broken algorithm or bot is detecting illicit activity might not flag me again, and then they would probably terminate my account, permanently tearing away my ability to publish for the Kindle, without even considering whether or not they were fucking over a completely innocent person.

(Yes, I'm still very bitter about that.)

But, anyway. Several of my fans have reached out to me, telling me that they could only read my stories because they were enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited, and can't afford to buy each individually. Which sucks. If I could, I'd enroll just about everything in the KU. That is another reason I'm doing this: to try and give those people another option. I know it's not perfect, but right now it's my most realistic response to the situation.

(If you are curious about learning more about the 'Amazing fucking me over' situation, please refer to this, this, & this blog post.)

Either way, I hope you enjoy the Misty Vixen Library if you are interested.

My Patreon has other rewards as well. For 1$/month, you can get early access to the first chapter of my newest titles. For 5$/month, you can also get access to naked alternate versions of the cover art!

Either way, thank you for helping me out. I really appreciate it.

Mini Update

June 14, 2018 Misty Vixen

Hey everyone.

This is more of an excuse to rant about things. It won't take too long.

Basically I'm just angry because ever since the whole thing happened with Amazon back in mid May, it feels like I've never entirely lost a background anxiety, because things kept happening. On the heels of dealing with that, (which caused old anxiety problems to flare and remanifest, naturally), I've had a few oddly vague yet potentially terrifying health problems.

To be clear, I am not in any immediate danger and I'm basically okay (as far as I know). Honestly, if I knew what was causing the problems, and it wasn't a big deal, I'd be fine. I'm not traditionally a hypochondriac, but I am paranoid and a bit of a worrier. So yeah, I've been having vague yet persistent troubles. I am going to go to the doctor soon after figuring that these vague problems have been going on for a week now and is probably worth actually checking out.

So because of all this anxiety and worry, I've been depressed and distracted and frustrated.

This has, obviously, eaten into my ability to write consistently.

The result of this is that I've fallen behind a lot on Demoness III. As of now, I've written four of ten chapters. On the flip side, I'm actually almost done writing Parasexual. I'm on the last chapter.

The main reason this is happening is because Parasexual is simpler than Demoness III, (a more traditional erotica that focuses more on sex than story, though there is a story), I tend to start the day out by writing for it first. Now, because of the stress, it tends to take longer and longer to A) wake up and get started, and B) get through writing for Parasexual. Then I feel drained and frustrated by the time I get to Demoness III. To make matters worse, Demoness III definitely feels more complex and complicated, which makes me worry over getting it right more...which makes me hesitate more often than I would if I wasn't feeling so emotionally taxed.

Honestly, all of this just feels like me fucking whining and making excuses, but I guess I'd rather whine and make excuses than say nothing or even lie. I'd rather tell the truth.

So, with that out of the way, let's do some mini-updates.

Wanderlust is coming out tomorrow!

I'm still on track to release the Patreon Library this month.

I'm writing a few more advice articles.

As stated before, I'm almost done with Parasexual. Currently writing the last chapter, and as soon as that's done, I'll get to editing and then publish it! I'm going to work at getting back on course with regularly writing Demoness III, and once Parasexual is wrapped up, I'm going to take some time to focus exclusively on Demoness III. Once I make some real progress on it and settle back into writing regularly for it, I'll begin writing Parasexual 2 alongside it. I'm also in the early planning phases of Women of the Wild II.

And that's it. There's the little update and my excuse to get my frustrations about stupid things that have been happening lately.

Changes & Plans

May 20, 2018 Misty Vixen

So, a lot's been happening.

Right now, I'm still gathering my thoughts. I feel like I'm picking the pieces back up, and walking on thin ice, waiting for something else to go horrifically wrong. But I'm going to continue forward with the tentative hope that the worst of it is over.

I want to recap a little, to make sure everyone is up to speed. I'll give a rough sequence of events.

After a massive boost in success thanks to luck and me releasing new, longer content with new cover art, and seeing more success in a few weeks than I have in my entire career, Amazon fucked me over and threatened to terminate my account when they falsely accused me of attempting to manipulate the Kindle Unlimited via page reads. I defended myself to the best of my ability, letting them know that not only did I not do that, I would never do that, nor do I even know how. In the process of this, every eBook I've ever written was removed from the store. I did manage to get them all back after a few fucking DAYS.

An in-depth post about this whole sorry thing can be read here.

Realizing that I can no longer trust Amazon, and that all of this seems to be tied to page reads in the Kindle Unlimited, I began trying to pull out of the KU. In an attempt to protect myself, I took down every individual episodic title that was in the KU, instead of waiting for them to fall out naturally, as I can't just pull out. Luckily, after I asked to be pulled out, Amazon agreed and took all of my titles out of the KU. You can read about that in detail here and here.

Now, I have decided to keep almost all of my episodic stories, and individual collections, (not including the Complete Seasons and Trilogies), unpublished, on the grounds that I will be re-publishing these stories in a cheaper and better format over the next year or so, and I would rather people have access to the better versions than the inferior versions. However, if people really, really want them, I've left up the Complete Seasons & Trilogies.

I would also like to point out that as I get close to re-releasing these titles, I will take down the old versions ahead of time. This is why Royal Lust (formerly Royal Love) is no longer available, as it is coming out June 1st.

Some of you may have noticed that Valkyries and Alien Harem have disappeared from the Kindle Store. There is a reason for this. Basically, as I think about my re-releases, some things occur to me, and here's something important that I realized.

I'm not very satisfied with most of my content. The reason for this is because...well, honestly, I guess a few different reasons. My own failings as a writer to be sure, but also because I just wasn't sure what I was doing for most of it. And, to compound the situation, writing in episodic shorts honestly does fuck with my ability to tell a good story. Or at least a story to my own satisfaction.

And this has shown up a few times in the form of, for example, Valkyries. I wrote that as almost kind of like a good version of Hellcats. Or my upcoming Parasexual. It's basically a better version of Paranormal Passions.

Because I have gotten better at writing, (I mean, I hope), and because I can write novels now, I'm really feeling the urge to redo a few of my older works, as I had much higher hopes for them, and knew they could be more than what they ended up being.

Alien Harem and Valkyries are the two I intend to do full on rewrites of. I think Alien Harem could at least be a solid trilogy, maybe even a bit more, but I think Valkyries could be a full on series. And I have more I want to say with Valkyries and I think it could be a really awesome series.

Now, in terms of what I'm doing right now.

I'm working on Demoness III. Definitely not as far in as I'd like to be, and as everything finishes settling, (I also have some unrelated real-life stuff going on right now, nothing bad, just distracting), I'm looking forward to settling in and making good progress on this just about every single day until it's done! And from the layout I've created, and how comfortable I'm getting writing novels, I think this one might actually be longer than Demoness II!

Basically the same story for Parasexual. Once everything settles, I'll make daily progress on it, too. This one will likely be about as long as Hellcats, so it shouldn't take as long to write.

The other thing I'm working on in the background right now is preparing my re-releases for, well, re-release. There typically isn't a great deal of work that goes into this, but there's enough that it warrants some preparation.

This is as far as I'm going to go on my in-progress projects. Well, writing-wise, at least. I don't want to spread myself too thin. Two projects at once is enough.

Now, as for what I plan on doing after that?

I've given it some thought, and I've decided that I will not be working on Haven after Parasexual. Instead, I will continue on with Parasexual until it is finished. This stems from not wanting to have too many series in progress at once. Three is enough. (And that's excluding the re-releases.)

That being said, I've received an unexpectedly large and positive response to Women of the Wild, and as such, once Demoness III is complete, I will begin production of Women of the Wild II. After that, I have a solid idea of what I want to do for Demoness IV, and will write that, followed by Women of the Wild III.

Once Demoness IV wraps up, I'll need to assess the situation. The thing is, I have ideas, to be sure, for several more Demoness books. But I have other ideas that I really want to get to, and I also don't want to work on a series too much, or I'll burn myself, and probably the readers, out. So there's a good chance that I'll put Demoness on the back burner.

While I will continue to work on Women of the Wild, as I have pretty solid ideas of what I want to do for Parts III, IV, & V, I'll have to decide what series to start up next. There's a very good chance that I'll finally begin my Sci-Fi Action Erotica series Wild Discovery.

Once Parasexual is wrapped up, I'll probably begin working on my rewrite of Alien Harem.

For the foreseeable future, this is how it will go. I'll have three series actively in production, with two of them being larger and more 'serious', with one of them being shorter and more focused on erotica and sex. And by shorter I mean 40,000 - 50,000 words, (Hellcats was 50,000 words for reference).

That's the gist of it.

I do, however, have one more big thing I want to talk about. My Patreon.

I've recently given it a revamp and a few things are different. One is a massive difference.

So, first of all, if you donate 1$/month, you will get access to the first chapters of my works in progress. 5$/month gets you access to the nude alternate versions of my covers and the first chapters.

I've added a new tier. For 10$/month, you will get access to all my books. This will come in the form of two downloadables: a kindle-ready file and a PDF, or you could just read it right there on Patreon. I'm planning on launching this in June and will do a full blog post explaining it. I also want to say that not everything will be available right away, mainly because of the Kindle Unlimited. Although I am technically pulled out of the KU, any of my books that have been borrowed by people will stay in their libraries until they naturally expire. So because Amazon has made me SUPER paranoid, I'm going to refrain from posting Hellcats, Demoness, or Women of the Wild related content until they naturally expire. Sorry, but I really just want to avoid any potential bullshit from Amazon.

Here's what I intend to have ready to go on launch: Royal Lust, Wanderlust, My Undead Lover, & Exploration. I will upload titles before their official release dates. Eventually, the Hellcats Trilogy, Women of the Wild, Demoness I & II, and The Misty Vixen Starter Pack will be available. I'm not going to put up my free titles (Snakeskin, Pink, Blind Date, The Pale Redhead, Large & Lovely), because they're freely available in all formats already.

I honestly have no idea if anyone will be interested in this, but I figure it couldn't hurt to experiment and give it a shot.

With how the past week or so has gone, I really feel like I need a backup plan or two in terms of being able to pay my bills and buy food.

So yeah, that's everything! Hope this was useful. Thanks for reading!

I've Successfully Pulled Out of the Kindle Unlimited - What's Next?

May 18, 2018 Misty Vixen

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.

Pulling Out of the Kindle Unlimited

May 15, 2018 Misty Vixen

Hey everyone, another update here with regards to my library of work.

In you aren't caught up yet, please read this blog post to learn how I've been fucked over for no real reason by Amazon. (I'm still pissed.)

So, last night I sat down and set aside about an hour and a half to go through ALL of my roughly 200 titles that are currently enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited and pull them out. In addition to this, I am going to be going through and unpublishing all of my individual episodes, and all of the mini-collections. Basically, all that will be left will be my stand-alone novellas, the Misty Vixen Starter Pack, the freebies, my newer novels, and the Complete Seasons and Trilogies.

Why am I doing this? Well, that blog post will explain it, but I'll go into some detail here.

Basically, because I was threatened and punished by Amazon for the actions of someone else that I have literally no control over, I need to protect myself. All of this had to do with the page reads through the Kindle Unlimited. Literally all of it. So obviously, the solution is: Pull out of the KU.

No Kindle Unlimited. No threat.

Unfortunately, with how the KU works, you can't just pull out. The best you can do is go in to each of your titles and uncheck the box that tells Amazon to auto-renew when your current subscription to the KU runs out.

How the KU works from the author's side of things is that you agree to enroll for a 90 day block. There's basically no way out once it's begun. You do get a brief window of time to exit out of it, a few days, but once you're locked in, you are really locked in. So you just have to wait it out.

In order to further mitigate the threat to me, I've decided to go ahead and just take down those episodes, so that they simply aren't available for purchase.

I'd like to say that, if you wait long enough, all of these series are going to be re-released as novels with better cover art and formatting, and for cheaper, so ultimately, this shouldn't affect you too much as the reader.

Well...except for the fact that you will no longer be able to read my titles through the KU. Honestly, I didn't want to do this. I loved being in the KU. It made things simple, and it gave a lot of people easy access to my work. And clearly it was working. A garnered a SHITLOAD of attention through April and the first half of May.

So, sorry everyone. I'm still trying to reach out to Amazon and see if I can maybe get a straight answer of: How can I possibly protect myself from this situation?

I'll let you know what they have to say. If anything at all.

Mid Crisis Update (I am PISSED.)

May 14, 2018 Misty Vixen

Let me start off by saying that: I. AM. FURIOUS.

Second, this is going to be a LONG post.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, EVERY SINGLE EBOOK I HAVE EVER WRITTEN IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE IN THE KINDLE STORE.

How in the fuck did I arrive here?

Well, lets get back to where it all started.

As March of this year rolled around, I noticed something strange. All of my page reads for February had disappeared. At first, I honestly didn't think much of it. I figured it was some kind of error. Weird errors have been known to crop up, and I was busy.

Then I suddenly got a message.

Hello,

We are reaching out to you because we detected reading or borrow activity for your books originating from illegitimate accounts attempting to manipulate the Kindle programs. These accounts might be related to a third-party marketing service. You will receive royalties associated with legitimate or paid sales; however, we will not pay for reading activity related to illegitimate accounts.

We fully support the efforts of our publishers to promote their books. However, please be aware you are also responsible for ensuring that the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions. We encourage you to thoroughly review any marketing services employed for promotional purposes.

We take activities that jeopardize the experience of our readers and other authors seriously. Please know any additional violation of our Terms and Conditions – including violation caused by any marketing services you, or others on your behalf, may have used – could result in account level actions, up to and including termination of your KDP account.

Please email us at content-review@amazon.com if you have any questions.

Regards,
Amazon KDP

So I was like: WTF? I promptly got back to them, ensuring them that not only would I not attempt anything illegal or illegitimate in regards to my page reads, I don't even know how. And as for marketing: well, I had actually finally done some marketing...back in October...and in March.

So the marketing I did back in October of 2017 was for Desire, was very low-key, and resulted in basically no sales/page reads. So I figured, "Oh well." And didn't come back. Obviously there was no way that this could be affecting my page reads in FEBRUARY. (Side Note: My page reads for February weren't even that good. No sudden spike. No massive uptick. Honestly, they were below average.) And the marketing set for March was slightly more upscale, but...it was set for March. Obviously, it could have no bearing on what happened in February. (Spoiler: It didn't do well either.)

Naturally, I was confused. And naturally, I began asking: "So, given the fact that this is not at all my fault, when am I going to get my page reads back?"

At first, I got a boilerplate response.

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding the status of your account.

Illegitimate reading or borrow activity is intended to manipulate Kindle services or products. This activity sometimes results from marketing services you might have used to promote your book. We encourage you to review any marketing services used. Please know that you are responsible for ensuring the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions to avoid termination of your KDP account.

You may email us at content-review@amazon.com with any questions.

Regards,

Amazon.com

So, I sent another response, again emphasizing my need for further information on this, primarily, uh, when do I get my page reads back now that you know it's not my fault? I've been hearing stories about Amazon's stonewalling tactics of just repeatedly sending the literal same copy/paste boilerplate response, so I was about prepared to give up. The amount of cash from the page reads wasn't really that much at all, and honestly, writing erotica on Amazon is kind of like living with a gun pointed at your head. You don't really want the attention of the person whose finger is on the trigger.

But I did ask again. And I got an actual, interesting response.

Hello,

Thanks for writing back to us.

I see that you've written to us about 2 issues. I'll do my best to provide a thorough answer to each of your inquiries in this message.

1. Unfortunately, this issue is one that will require input from another team, so I can't answer it directly. I've forwarded your concerns to the team that handles this issue, and they will consider your input.

Someone from the appropriate team will reply within two business days.

*********

2. Royalties earned from pages read are available the following month, when the KDP Select Global Fund is announced. That’s why you don’t see any royalties from pages read in your sales dashboard.

Hence, you will be able to see the February report by 15th March 2018.

The KDP Select Global Fund is announced monthly in our community forum on kdp.amazon.com

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

That first issue was me asking about which specific titles had been affected by the 'illegitimate reading or borrowing activity', which was really just more for my curiosity. But the second issue was: "When do I get my page reads back?" Obviously, he had misunderstood the question, so in response, I sent him a picture of my account, specifically the fact that ALL the days in February had dropped to zero for page reads. This is where it got interesting.

Hello,

I'm sorry for any disappointment this issue has caused.

I completely understand your concern here regarding zero page reads for the entire month of February.

We'll need a little time to look into the issue. I've reached out to our Report team to investigate this issue why no pages read updated is there any technical glitch from our side.

We'll contact you with more information within 3 to 5 business days.

Thanks for your patience.

So it was acknowledged as a glitch! Amazon acknowledged that my page reads were taken IN ERROR. Now, I'll definitely admit that this was probably written by someone who didn't know for sure. But it was something. While I was dealing with this, I recieved another message from a totally different person.

Hello,

We encourage you to thoroughly review any marketing services employed for promotional purposes.

We take activities that jeopardize the experience of our readers and other authors seriously. Please know any additional violation of our Terms and Conditions – including violation caused by any marketing services you, or others on your behalf, may have used – could result in account level actions, up to and including termination of your KDP account.

Best regards,
Amazon.com

So I was confused again. I responded to it, asking what specifically this was in regards to, because I was already in contact with Amazon over an error. Unfortunately, they never responded. And to save us all some trouble, every week or so, I'd contact the initial guy asking, "So...how's it going with my page reads?" He responded two times, saying that they needed more time and apologizing...and then he never responded again after my latest attempt. So that was frustrating. But by then, I had other concerns, like the fact that March was my worst money for sales. Ever.

I was furiously trying to wrap up Sex & Survival Season 3 and Demoness II. And I did. I launched Demoness II and decided to give my idea of re-releasing Hellcats as some novels a shot.

Well, I exploded in mid April and things were fantastic. To be clear, I was making more in one day than I did for ALL of April...consistently. I have never even come CLOSE to that level of success.

Then, all of a sudden, without warning, I got this message on May 10th.

And I promptly shit my pants. I was suspended, which basically meant that I couldn't access my account. Now, to be clear, I had done NO more marketing of any kind after that one in March. I didn't really think I needed to, at least not for awhile. I promptly responded, being as thorough and transparent as possible in my response.

I spent the rest of the day freaking out, having anxiety problems, and eventually managed to sleep. Well, I woke up the next hoping for an update. Oh, I got an update all right.

Every single one of my eBooks was gone. That was when I really started to panic, because that seemed like the next step to termination. Although, oddly enough, all my paperbacks were still there. And people were messaging me, letting me know that my books were missing. Well, not much longer after this, Amazon responds, saying that they have decided to reinstate my account. I regain access and see that, oddly, all of my titles still show as Live in the store. And yet the lead to dead pages. So I thought maybe it was something that was going to self-correct. I gave it a few hours.

It didn't self correct.

I e-mailed Amazon about the problem, and then, deciding to be proactive, tried to republish a few of my titles by uploading new versions. (I needed to do this anyway, to update a few of the links in the back of my newer titles and correct a few errors I had noticed.)

That didn't work.

As of yesterday, (May 13th), I received a response from Amazon, saying that they were going to look into the error of my missing books, and they'd get back to me within 5 business days. So, if I'm very lucky, then by Friday my problem will be fixed.

But...

Let's recap, shall we?

After three and a half years of busting my ass, never once breaking the rules, struggling to make a living, and earning Amazon money for sales through my books, and writing over ONE MILLION WORDS, I finally began earning a REAL living for once in my ENTIRE LIFE. I finally began to enjoy ACTUAL SUCCESS. And I had done it without breaking any of the rules, without taking any shortcuts. I had done it RIGHT.

And Amazon arbitrarily just fucking DECIDED that I was guilty and fucked me over for basically no reason. What in the FUCK is this guilty until proven innocent shit? How can I POSSIBLY prove that I'm innocent to them? How can I prevent this from happening again!? How can I POSSIBLY know who is reading my books!? How can I stop bots from auto-reading my titles!? I have literally ZERO control over that!

And to make matters even worse, a "glitch" suddenly takes ALL of my titles down DURING THE BEST EARNING DAYS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. This has cost me LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. And how long is this going to take to recover from this? I am EVER going to see this level of success again?

And it gets worse.

Because of this, I am basically being forced to pull all of my titles out of the Kindle Unlimited. Unless Amazon can somehow promise me that this will not happen again, I literally cannot risk losing my ENTIRE account. And I don't want to do it. I don't want to pull my books out of the Kindle Unlimited. The readers were clearly enjoying it, and some people were specifically thanking me for making it available through the KU. But now I have to deprive them of that because Amazon fucked me over for literally no reason.

I'm sorry if I seem overly petty or vindictive, but this is straight up disrespectful of Amazon to treat me, AND OTHERS, like this. I am not the only one this has happened to. I know that. And some people have had their account terminated and lost EVERYTHING.

How in the FUCK is this fair at all?

So...yeah. I'm really pissed. I'm normally a really chill person, and the thing is, I actually can understand Amazon's position. Some shady motherfuckers are using bots to fuck Amazon over, and fuck people out of page reads, and game the system. And that's wrong. And Amazon should do something about it. But this is NOT the answer. I actually wouldn't even mind them subtracting any illegitimate page reads from my account. I would gladly give those up, because I agree, it's not fair for me to benefit, even indirectly, from someone else scamming the system.

But this is absolutely NOT the way to handle this. Threatening and, in some cases, ruining the lives of innocents authors is seriously fucked up. Because for a lot of people, writing is our LIVES. Not only is it what pays the bills, but it's what we live for, what we get out of bed in the morning for. I don't write for a hobby, I don't just write as a job. I write because I love it, I write because I care about it, I write because making a living from writing has turned what was a pretty miserable life into a happy one.

And Amazon is threatening to take that away.

One final thought for right now, as I await Amazon's response. I have to say that this has utterly shattered my trust in Amazon. Before, whenever I had a problem, the responses were often prompt and professional, and they solved the problem. But this is fucking ridiculous. In an interview in 2015, Jeff Bezos himself put out a bold statement: "But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com." Basically, he was saying, "If you have a problem, email me personally. I'll handle it." I've heard people say that you do get a response if you do this.

So you know what? I'm going to do just that. I'm going to e-mail Jeff or at least his staff and let him know that his company has failed several people with this blind, guilty until proven innocent, or really just guilty, mentality.

Wish me luck.

And as a little P.S....

For some reason, the eBook version of The Misty Vixen Starter Pack still has a page, although the title is 'currently unavailable'. I got a new review for it from Aris Echevarria stating: "can't give a review because as i in the process of downloading this book it suddenly came up as "this is currently unable to download " so i tried other books by this same author and they were all gone. Censorship?" Thanks, I appreciate that. And I appreciate all the people who reached out to me to try and let me know what was happening, and who've tried to help me.

UPDATE #1
UPDATE #2