The Death of Kindle Worlds

If you haven't heard the news yet, Amazon is shutting down Kindle Worlds over the next few weeks. This comes after Amazon shut down all of its other programs for writers such as Write On and Kindle Scout. This was the last entity that writers still had an option to work with, and now that its shutting down, what is left for writers over at Amazon?

Although I currently have three Kindle Worlds titles, this news isn't the end of the world, so to speak. When Kindle Scout shut down, I knew that Worlds wouldn't be far behind, but I thought I would have at least until 2019 before they decided to close. I'm going to miss my $20-$25 a year in royalties from these titles. Even though it wasn't much, I recently had been looking into revamping my backlist to boost sales with new covers, better formatting, and a nice clean edit for each title. Now I have less titles to do that for, so that will save me a little time and effort.

I don't think that there's ever a good time for a book or a series of books to become obsolete, but this wasn't a great time for me to hear this. I was finally trying to get real plans in place to relocate, not just wishful thinking. A big part of that was getting my passive income streams up to par. I needed these novellas not so much for the direct royalties, but for the higher tiers on my Patreon page. My highest tier ($15) now looks a little silly, because the bulk of what patrons were paying for was digital copies of my entire backlist, which is going from five titles down to just two. No one in their right minds would join at the $15 level (even with access to all of the additional amazing lower-level perks) knowing they could pick up digital copies of my backlist for about six bucks. I'm trying my best to get more work out, but insert your favorite tired Rome-related cliche here.

The Legal Bit...

All hope is not lost because some rights do revert back to me upon the closing of Kindle Worlds. The problem is the Worlds Licensor (the author of the original series) also holds onto some rights because those who submitted a story, novella, or novel to a world was required to use characters and locations from the existing series. What it boils down to is that if I wanted to revive these novellas, I would have to have explicit permission from the author of the original series in order to do so, which isn't likely to happen.

Under the bubble of the Kindle Worlds label, the Worlds authors were getting royalties from someone else's work and probably a bit of promotion for their own work in a roundabout way without doing anything other than offering authors like me the ability to play with their characters. Without that bubble, offshoot works have the potential to dilute the power of their series, especially if you run into readers who don't understand the difference between the original series and the fan fiction titles. If I were on the other end of this, I could see why I wouldn't want former Kindle Worlds titles competing with my series.

I signed up for Kindle Worlds knowing full well I was tying up my hard work with copyright restrictions, but right now I have the feeling that it was all a waste of time. I'm sure that feeling will pass, eventually.

Titles Are Still Available... For Now

Amazon isn't pulling all of its Kindle Worlds titles until "on or around July 16th" so if you still want to check out my Melody of Love novella series, you can still get them. Unfortunately for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, they have already been removed from the program as of yesterday--the day the email was sent, so thanks for that heads up, Amazon. It's probably because they were promising proactive payment for borrows, even if the book hadn't met the reading threshold. Smart business move for them, I guess.

Melody of Love (#1)
Haunting Melody (#2)
Melody's Valentine (#3)

I also want to quickly thank those who have downloaded any of these titles since they first went live on Amazon. I do appreciate the support and the book reviews. Now I have to get back to work. Gotta build up that backlist again...

A New Book, A New Direction

Good news! If you were dying to know what happens next to Mel and Austin, the third and final installment of my Kindle Worlds The Callaways: Melody of Love series, Melody's Valentine, is now available from Amazon. And don't forget to to add it to your Goodreads shelves.

Now I get to hang up my Kindle Worlds hat and put my focus on other projects. It was an interesting experience working with Kindle Worlds and I learned a lot--plus it's always fun to write sanctioned fan fiction, if we're just going to call it what it is (and that's exactly what it is). I can't say I will never return to write something else for Kindle Worlds, but they will have to acquire the rights to something else that piques my interest for me to return. They have television series as well as book series, so if they could pull off something like The X-Files, I would be first in line to pick up the pen again. Amazon, get on that.

I have quite a few projects ready to be resurrected now that Melody's Valentine is out in the world. I'm still in the first draft stage of my diamond thief novel (and still mulling over possible titles so I don't have to keep calling it that). I'm getting ready to get back into revisions on something else. I'm going to throw it out to my patrons on Patreon. Friday I'll be posting a poll and I'm going to let you choose what I work on next in the revision stage. I've got plenty of great options you can choose from if you become a patron before the poll ends. 

December Is Here!

The best part about it being December 1st? NaNoWriMo is officially over. At 24,755 words I didn't even hit half of the goal, but it's 24,755 words more than I had thirty days ago, so it's still a win in my little writer heart. The rest of 2017 will be dedicated to getting Melody's Valentine ready for publication in January, but you can be a part of what I'm going to work on in 2018. Become a Patron by December 15th and you can vote for what project I tackle next.

I also woke up to a rejection letter. Not fun, but not anything that's unusual. It will make me rethink about submitting to west coast-based publications for awhile, though. When I submit to Midwest or east coast publications, the rejection letters usually arrive between noon and 6pm. West coast publications like to give me something to wake up to. At least I'm at the point in my career where this little anomaly makes me chuckle. Five years ago I would have went all Betty-Draper-on-her-fainting-couch for a day.

And it did get me thinking about where to submit to next. 2018 is probably going to be the year of Go Big or Go Home, so I'm aiming high. The literary elite won't see me coming!

Still on the NaNo Road

It's never a good thing when you can say that you are thousands of words behind in your writing. Especially during November. But don't worry. Even though the goal is to hit 15,000 words tomorrow and I'm stuck hovering around 7000, I'll be able to get back on track. After all, Thursday night is one of my TV-free nights--not because I force myself not to watch it. There's just nothing good on. And what better way to use that time than to write, write, write. Or agonize for two hours about how I still don't have a title. Which ever one of those options strikes my fancy.

Between freelancing work (still have plenty of spots available for my Fiverr gigs), NaNo, and revising Melody's Valentine, I've probably neglected doing all of the promotional work I should be doing. Let's get that back on track: remember, all of my books are available through Amazon and most of the major book/ebook retailers worldwide. You can check out the full list of titles to see what you may be interested in. Might I suggest my Melody of Love Kindle Worlds series books #1 and #2 so you can be ready to read #3 in January? And please, if you read it and like it, don't forget to review it!

If you are looking for a little more, you can still sign up to get exclusive content at Patreon. This week I'm releasing the cover for Melody's Valentine, and next week you can get the first look at an excerpt from Pieces, my poetry collection that's debuting on Wattpad in 2018.

A Few Quick Updates

It's that time of year again -- NaNoWriMo is in full swing. Although I tried to get to that magic 1667 this morning, it didn't quite work out. A few other quick writing projects cut in line, but I'm planning on hitting the magic number before the day is done.

The other update: my Patreon page is now live! It's a new adventure for me, so I'm already expecting a few hiccups along the way. If you want to support it, I can tell you there are a few fun posts coming up. Some of the exclusive content being released to patrons in November includes a detailed update on Melody's Valentine, a cover reveal, a first look at an exclusive excerpt from Pieces (a new project for Wattpad coming in 2018) and an excerpt from this year's NaNoWriMo project.

Now I'm going to get back to that NaNo project. Happy Writing to all those participating this month!