November Newsletter on my newsletter blog is “missing in action”.

So a long time has passed since I’ve posted anything. I didn’t even realize how long it was until I checked my calendar. I even forgot to make a post for November on my newsletter blog. I’ll try to remember to do the blog post for December.

Writing discrepancies might lead to pre-order dates moving back.

I have done very little writing. This has been the case since mid-September. There’s been a lot of back and forth with whether the kids are home or in school, and on top of that, I have the one I’m homeschooling. Plus, we’ve have two snowstorms in the past month. Since we live off of a dirt road outside of town, the snow drifts can make it impossible for us to get anywhere until someone plows us out, so I’ve had everyone here on and off during the last few weeks. I think all of that just threw everything up in the air.

So if I end up pushing a pre-order back, this is why. I’m on track for publishing A Deceptive Wager on January 17. That book is already done, and I just need to give it another round through in edits. The other books, however, are up in the air. I have tentative release dates on them, but if I have to, I’ll move them back. I refuse to rush a book. I want each book to be the best it can be.

I won’t be putting any more audiobooks on Amazon or Audible.

Over the past few days, I’ve been studying up on Audible’s return policies. I already mentioned this on Facebook, but for those who haven’t seen it over there (or aren’t on Facebook), Audible is allowing its subscribers to return any audiobook for up to a full year for any reason. Audible will then return the credits (or whatever those things are called) to the customer.

Authors in a Facebook group I’m in have said they’ve noticed up to a 50% return rate on their audiobooks. A couple of them say they average that 50% in returns. So last month, I made $30. What if, in February or even June, 50% of the people who got my audiobooks decided to return them? That means I would then owe ACX (which uploads to Audible and Amazon) $15 because they already paid me the $30 back in October.

I get that they’ll probably wait until I sell $15 more worth of audiobooks to collect on that money, but the point is, they will demand I pay them that $15. This is like being in debt, except I have no control over who buys or returns my audiobooks.

What Audible needs a more author friendly return policy. There are two requirements I would like: 1.) The customer did not get to listen to the entire audiobook. I’d suggest no more than 40% listened to. 2.) The customer should be required to return it within 2 weeks. Two weeks is plenty of time to decide if someone likes the audiobook enough to keep going or not. Plus, I wouldn’t have been paid already for the sale. Then I don’t have to owe ACX anything in some unknown future.

Until there’s a more author-friendly situation for authors, I’m done. But I’ll still claim my books over there to stop thieves from taking them.

Speaking of audiobooks, it’s slow going on getting one done.

It looks like I can’t do more than one per quarter. My focus needs to be on my family, and after that, I need to write new books. That puts audiobooks at #3 on the list of priorities. I enjoy doing them, but I find the more I do this, the more I pick up things I didn’t before. I’m hoping that the new microphone I got will be way better than the one I used on Meant To Be. If it’ll cut down my editing time by half, then it’ll have more than paid for itself. On average, each chapter is taking me 6-7 hours to do.

Unfortunately, I got into this after I put out over 100 books. As of right now, I have 105 books and 6 short stories. This includes all of the genres I’ve done. I have done 91 romances (including A Deceptive Wager) so far. So basically, this means I’ll probably never be able to do my entire backlist. I can only do my personal favorites.

***

I’ll leave it here for now. I’d like to get another trivia post up next. I think I’ll do Forced Into Marriage for that. 😀