Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Morning!

Happy Election day!

I hope everyone goes out and votes. I know we're all really sick of the whole thing, but we're almost there! Hang in there. It will be done in a day!

We made it!

How is the newest Vampyre book? I hope you're enjoying it. This week I received two messages about how the readers didn't think they'd like them, since vampyres have been done so many times, but they did.
These aren't your normal vamps. I swear. They are going to entertain you and you'll have fun every second of the way. Who doesn't like some sexy threesome fun?

I know Jolie is a woman after my own heart.

Now for some more news.
I've been doing this for almost 3/4 of a decade. I write, I release, I keep going. Well, something has to change. After talking it over, mulling it over, and losing sleep over it, I've had to come to a conclusion. The price of my books are going up.
Here's why.
I currently offer all my book for 3.99. I swore I'd never raise the price, but something has happened. I've been pirated. Someone has been stealing my books. (not one person, but a few.) They are selling them to bootleg companies that are illegally offering them on their websites. I've had to hire an attorney to begin getting them taken down.
In order to be able to pay a retainer, since we're talking about 25 of my 43 books being stolen, it's going to have to come from somewhere. I also have a few readers who buy my books, and return them within the 7 day window to amazon. They are stealing too.
It's been getting worse, so I am having to hire my attorney to go after them too. And he will.

Here's my breakdown.
At 3.99, I get paid 2.70 a book. Amazon keeps almost 1.30. Seems fair. They distribute and handle releasing my books. Of that 2.70 that's left, I have to pay taxes.
Yeah, I know. Yippee.
I lose about 1.00 per book to taxes.
That leaves me 1.70 a book.
Out of that 1.70 a book, I have to pay for editing. Each book gets 3 rounds of editing. 
I release 12 books a year. That's a whole lot of editing.
Then there are book covers, and cover art.
That takes me down to about .70 cents a book left.
Then promotion.
That takes me down to about .15 cents a book.
Now, I have to find a way to pay for the attorney's fees for the people who are stealing from me. Unfortunately, like with any business, when people do illegal things, like steal, pirate, or rob a business, the rest of the consumers have to carry the burden. So, I'm going to have to up my book prices to 4.99 to cover the legal fees that I now have to handle.

I am so damn sorry.
I hate every single second of this. From the start, I didn't want to charge more than 3.99. For the longest time, that was feasible. I never counted in the fact that people would steal from me. That breaks my heart. I figured that I would be able to keep it up, since I don't draw a salary. Clearly. at .15 cents a book, I do this for the love of writing. I live off my husband's salary, and this was to give good people quality books that they deserved to get at good prices, but now I'm having to dip into the money that I use to buy groceries, pay for my kids doctor's appointments, and our home bills.
Until this moment, I've never had to do that.
Now, since people feel it's okay to steal, and one book doesn't hurt anyone, let's really think about that. I have 50 people stealing from me each month just in returned books they've read and sent back to Amazon.
That's 200.00 a month.
2400.00 a year that I have to find to recoup somewhere. As of this moment, I've just been using my husband's paycheck to cover it.
Now I have to add in a lawyer.
that's 5000.00 a year.

See how this is looking?
I never thought that i'd become a bestselling author. I wrote for fun. Now that I have, I've seen that there are so many issues I never thought about.

So, starting after the Oracle book in January, I'll be increasing my book prices by one dollar. I know it's not fair to any of you, but I have three choices. Cut back on books, make them smaller, or do the increase.

I'm sorry.
I actually cried over all of this.
I apologize to my readers who are on a budget who now have to shell out one more dollar because of the dishonest, mean, cruel people out there. But Karma will prevail. WHEN they are caught, I will lower the price back down. For any book under 500 pages, they will stay 3.99.
For any books over 500 pages, they will be 4.99.

Again, I hope you forgive me.
This has been a hard blog to write.
I hate that I've done it.

I'm going to go write Kiss of Souls now, and try to forget that I've had to raise the price of my books when I promised I wouldn't.
For those of you on Kindle Unlimited, they will still be free.


I hope you keep reading my books, but I understand if you don't.
I'm truly sorry.


Much love, mayhem, and murder,

A very sad Morgan.

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