Hey everyone,
I’ve decided to pull the Doms of the FBI series from KU and go wide with it.
Right now, I’ve canceled the KU renewal. I’ll be slowly getting those to all retailers, hopefully soon. With Owning Up and the Doms of the FBI series, I’m trying to learn Smashwords for distribution. It’s not the easiest or most user-friendly site. The terms of service and “help” manuals read like a nerd who doesn’t know when to stop talking. I can relate to that, being a nerd myself. But it does make you appreciate someone with good technical writing skills who knows how to be succinct.
Anyway, navigating that site for a publisher has caused me to grind my teeth, have nightmares, and yell at the computer so much that my dog won’t leave my side. She’s determined to make it all better for Mommy.
I was using Draft 2 Digital, but they refused to publish Owning Up because of “incestual acts.” They did not like that Lex and Stef fell for the same woman and had threesomes with her. I tried to tell D2D that Owning Up used to be published wide (authorspeak for “published at more places than Amazon,”) but they were having none of it. Then, when I updated the keywords for Re/Deemed (DFBI 8), they flagged it as pseudo-incestual because Lukas is a Daddy Dom.
I mean, really. I looked up the definition of pseudo-incenst, and it’s sex involving step-parents and step-children, who are not biologically related. So, with their very conservative interpretation of the Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, etc, terms of service, I went looking elsewhere. D2D is user-friendly, but they seem to be prejudiced against Daddy Doms. I need a place that can house the whole series, and in Re/Defined, Jordan is also a Daddy Dom.
Instead of splitting my babies up, I’m looking for one home for everybody. I’ll miss D2D’s user-friendly templates and process, but I won’t miss their overly conservative interpretation of TOS from places that have housed either these specific books or books that are similar in nature.
I’m waiting on Smashwords to determine whether Re/Paired is worthy of wide distribution right now. If it decides it will distribute to Apple, Kobo, and BN for me, then I’ll use them. If not, I have publisher accounts at Kobo and BN, but I won’t be able to publish at Apple because I’m a PC kind of gal, and they discriminate against authors who don’t have Macs. I’m sure I could pay someone to do it, but Apple currently makes up about 12% of my sales–most of that AJ Stone, which is my MM stuff–so I’m sure I’d take a bath on it.
In other news, if Re/Deemed gets 891 more pre-orders, I’ll write more in the series. If not, then Re/Deemed will close out the series. I’ve loved writing it, but sometimes a moment has passed and we need to move on. I am working on Awakenings 4 (no title) and a new series that’s different from my usual work (still BDSM, so don’t worry about that!)
Michele Zurlo 