This is a very nice gift from Amazon – your book is sold at a discounted price, but you still receive full royalties. Of course, nobody can tell you for sure how to get it, but some ideas can help you a lot. The last two weeks, I conducted a few experiments to test some of the assumptions I had based on my previous experience. Let me share what I found. 1. Your book should ideally be new, and you need traction. In other words, if you published a book, actively promoted it, and sales are on the rise, it is highly likely you will have a price strike. 2. Do not hesitate to raise the price dramatically. In one instance, I increased the price from 12.95 to 49.95 and got the strike-through price. Yes, it's tempting to buy a few hundred of your own books in such a situation, because it would be profitable. But I do not think it's worth risking your account for a quick buck. 3. If you arrange an ads-heavy launch and strike-through price strategically, you can recoup a significant portion of your net losses during the days of your price strike. What is your experience with strike-through prices? Would you like to add something to my findings?

Publishing piracy visits increasing by more than 20% year-over-year, and publishing actually overtaking film as the second most pirated media sector, the debate on whether to fight piracy or ignore it is more relevant than ever. Here is a breakdown of the two prevailing schools of thought to help you decide which strategy fits your current author career. The Argument for "Letting It Go" (Visibility) For many authors, the biggest threat isn't piracy; it is obscurity. - Discovery Tool: Some authors have argued that piracy acts like a library or lending system, where people discover an author for free and then buy the rest of the catalog. - Pirates are Customers: Surprisingly, data suggests 41% of book pirates also buy books, often purchasing the same book in multiple formats. - The "Whack-a-Mole" Problem: Spending hours sending takedown notices can be a "Sisyphean task" that takes time away from writing. The Argument for Fighting Back (Revenue & Safety) However, for authors relying on book sales for a living, piracy can be devastating. - Proven Sales Loss: Author Maggie Stiefvater famously proved that piracy hurt her sales. When she uploaded "decoy" PDFs (broken files) to pirate sites, her legitimate ebook sales recovered immediately, saving her book series from cancellation. - Reputation Damage: Pirated copies are often imperfect scans or bad conversions. Readers may leave negative reviews on Amazon based on the poor formatting of a file they stole. - KDP Account Risk: This is critical for KDP Select authors. If Amazon's bots find your book available for free on a pirate site, they may interpret this as a breach of exclusivity, potentially risking your KDP account or leading to your book being price-matched to free. Where do you stand? Is it free marketing or theft of your livelihood?

I wrote about a particularly bad experience with a publisher in another post and want to expand on it because that experience sparked a chain of thoughts based on my experiences over the past year. Just so you know, I’m not being very judgemental, but there’s definitely something dirty going on with some people in this industry. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥. 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦'𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵. 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘋𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 17 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘵. 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵, 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬. A publisher is a bit like a marketer. Of course, they have other services, but in an economy driven by finances and making a profit, the marketing part has become more and more important now. Those days of being able to send your manuscript to a publisher and have them publish it are gone. I did a lot of research last year whilst writing and came across the 'bridge' obstacle. The bridge is the thing that held me up from going on toward the publishing part. What scares me a lot is everything that comes into play when your book is done and you are putting it on the market, the back and forth of improving your book like it’s a dish sent back by a customer complaining the steak is not well-done enough. This stage is also where I came across the first bad apples. People who steal the hard work of others and publish it as their own. People, whom I won’t call writers, who think easy money is around the corner are using AI to write rubbish and flood the market, causing platforms to create more obstacles for real writers. And then I met the self-publishing writer, who was, in fact, someone who had mastered the art of not giving a ‘xxx’ about the writing part and, to be honest, was really good at the marketing part. Very soon I learnt this person was a real piece of work, but I got intrigued; very little judgement is involved here, as I said in my opening.

I have been a member for some time now, browsing, searching and learning but not posting very actively on this Skool. I am also that one-book writer putting his life journey into ink. In my case, it is about my move to Thailand and living, working and surviving here for the past years. About a year ago, for medical reasons, I left Bangkok to semi-retire with my wife in rural Thailand. That allowed me a lot of time to finish rewriting all my existing articles on the subjects contained in my book into storytelling reads that would appeal to a broad, interested audience. Since joining this group, I have learnt a lot, especially from participating in one of Igor's calls. Thank you Igor and the two other people who were present. That was an interesting exchange. My biggest obstacles were learning and realising that KDP is not simply uploading a .doc file, and secondly, keeping myself motivated a couple of hours a week to work on my book, especially since we moved to rural Thailand, where the pace is so much slower. The latter is still an issue, as life is good here. Progress: The word count, tone of voice, spelling (UK spelling), length and read time of each chapter, introduction, glossary, about the author and this book, and imprint – all that is done. Photos: One of the things I learned along the way is that colour is soooo much more expensive, so I had to remove all the hyperlink blue and emojis and then work on my imagery. Learning about the use of colour and the cost of size affecting your split (I wanted to stay in the 70%), I selected 14 black and white photos from my collection of hundreds of pictures taken over the past 5+ years and then went to AI to ask what should be done with them. I also secured written approval from anyone who appeared in the pictures. Each picture is now: - 300 DPI - 900x1367 dimensions - total size is under 6 Mb Notary & Trust: Sadly I had a very negative experience with a publisher who mistook my being a first-time writer of a book for being gullible in business and unintelligent about publishing. He overlooked the fact that I had worked a hundred years ago as a proofreader and Jack-of-all-trades at a large Dutch/British publisher, and that I had also worked for four years at the largest newspaper conglomerate in the Netherlands. 😆 He also overlooked the fact that I had read about notaries and had taken some rather silly selfies of myself at my PC while writing my book, as well as other ways I was able to prove I am the author. It did, however, make me very insecure when other people asked me to read my work. Right now I am even too insecure to include the teaser (introduction and part of chapter 1) of my book here. Sorry for that.

First time ever! 500 books sold this month Although the royalties are small, I still consider the learning curve as the important part