Amazon Royalties.

So, there I was feeling like a dead author when I get in the mail my royalty statment from Amazon for 2012.

I read the directions for opening the envelope and folded it properly all around to discover what was inside.

It read 51.94.

It is not a lot of money, but at .35 cents a sale, it says to me 148 people bought a Wooffer's Woods story in the year 2012.

I am proud. I am not proud for me, but for Wooffer and all the animals of the farm that the stories are about. Tomorrow I will tell Old Agnes. She will spread the word of their fame. I smile thinking of that!

What a lot of love goes around here!

Love,

Betty

Good for you, Betty, I am happy for you.

That is 12 per month.

Dear Alice, my friend.

You know that I know that you know it is not at all about us. It is about stuff we never dreamed about when we first put a word onto paper. It is about our spirits running amuck and smacking people upside the heads to read our words. Sometimes it is here and sometimes it is there. Our spirits have more fun than we do. I love that.

Love,

Betty

2/4/2013

Betty..



Congratulations........



Cheers..Joe..

Wow! I am thrilled at your check. That's a whole week's worth of groceries at my house. Hooray for you and some pay off for the work you did.

It is like putting pennies in a jar. It did not come as one check, but in dribs an drabs over the year.

Thank you all for the smiles and .

Like you have said, DK, 50 dollars is a weeks worth of food. I love that.

Love,

Betty

Amazon is nicer - so far - than PA has been lately. I finally heard from them today. They informed me very bluntly that the only rights being returned to me were for the unformatted text, and that if I were to attempt to use their cover design or their page layout, I would be in for a whole lot of trouble, so I had best pay them $750. $500 for the cover design and $250 for the layout.

(I designed the cover and they used a standard layout.)

I hadn't planned on using either the old cover or layout, so they won't be getting anything from me, but I thought it was kind of snarky, especially that threatening tone I have heard others mention, but hadn't encountered from them myself until now.

Ah, well, it was the right choice for that book at that time.

I knew, of course, that your stories were valuable from the first time I read them, but it is nice to hold the proof in your hand, isn't it.

Annie

I'm due for a similar letter. Guess I should have jumped at the $49 offer, then the $149 then the $199 offer to sell me my rights a year ago. Looks like they've found a new way to slam us on the way out.

I am grateful that I did get teh ebook rights returned back when ebooks were first on the horizon. Thus, my ebook is my own. Later they went into the ebook business so I did something right.

I'm expecting my $750 letter any day. Yes, free publication all right. No wonder self-publishing with ebooks has become so popular!

I didn't actually get a letter, DK. I sent them a message through the author support page, saying that I still had not heard from them, and reminded them, again, that the rights would be reverting to me on the date in the contract. They sent me an email response to that message. You might want to contact them sooner.

Congratulations, Betty.

My condolences DK and Ann.

No problem for me, Abe. I had no intention of using their formats, etc.

Look what Betty has done with her new covers and formats fot the Wooffer stories. She's an inspiration.

My message from Publish America; seems we all had books about the same time - guess that's how we met at the PAMB. That was a good thing.

Thank you for your kind message. The contract for Arirang was actually signed on 2/8/06, so it will not expire and go out of print until 2/8/13. When your contract is terminated or expires, you own the unformatted text only, and you can do as you choose with that alone.

PublishAmerica continues to own the ISBN number, the cover design, and the layout design of the text. Any use of any of these items would be a serious and very clear case of infringement. Therefore, you can use the same design only if we transfer the rights to you, or to your new publishing company. If you would like to use the cover or layout design, we would transfer the rights to your cover design and/or text layout, and provide you with high resolution pdf files of each. The cover design would cost $500, and/or the text layout would cost $250.

Again, you own the unformatted text only, and you can do as you choose with that alone.

PublishAmerica Support


I had a great cover created for another book of mine for $25 by and expert. As for "format" - that was done by a software program. I did work with some nice people when I initially submitted my novel for print. They are probably long gone.

Word for word. The place has changed in the past seven years.

Congratulations, Betty! Every little helps.

2/5/2013
I'm amazed how I'm doing selling my books as E Books,
I've made more money than PA ever paid me, "0" I don't
trust them, there's no way we can find out what they have
sold, as of this year I have become a publisher thanks to
Shelagh and many here on how to go about it plus my learning
about Kindle and Barnes & Nobel and Smashwords...I wonder if
there's any other E Book sites we can sell our books on ?
Cheers...Joe...

I think smashwords takes care of most of the, Joe. Next time you visit your dashboard, go to the channel management page and you will see where all they go from smashwords.

If you learn of other, would you let us know?

Thank you for your inquiry. The contract for your book already expired on
2/1/13, and the book is now out of print. You own the unformatted text only, and
you can do as you choose with that alone.

PublishAmerica continues to
own the ISBN number, the cover design, and the layout design of the text. Any
use of any of these items would be a serious and very clear case of
infringement. Therefore, you can use the same design only if we transfer the
rights to you, or to your new publishing company. If you would like to use the
cover or layout design, we would transfer the rights to your cover design and/or
text layout, and provide you with high resolution pdf files of each. The cover
design would cost $500, and/or the text layout would cost $250.

Again,
you own the unformatted text only, and you can do as you choose with that
alone.

PublishAmerica Support



I think I will let it be. It has been a lot of fun and I am glad I met all of you wonderful folks.

They manage to make it sound as though the ""unformatted text" is worthless. It is not. It is the basis for their product, and they don't have a product without it.

That "unformatted text," in my contract, was called a "literary work," which they had rights to use as the basis for their "product" for a limited amount of time.

You now have the right to do whatever you want with your "literary work." Without it, they have nothing. They are trying to intimidate you - don't let them.

And, by "you," I mean me, Alice, DK, Joe, and anyone whom they attempt to intimidate into paying an exorbitant fee for something you do not need.

Alice, if you want to keep PP&P going, you don't need their cover, their ISBN, or their "format" which, in most cases, is a standard format that has nothing unique about it for them to claim as their creation.

The truth is that the unformatted text is what we sent PA in the beginning. It was not a lot of trouble to format the Wooffer book for Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and Amazon....either ebook or paperback.

I do have to thank Shelagh and all the people of Published Authors for the education to do the formatting and covers and finding the sites to submit my newly formatted text and new cover for publication.

Like Alice, I am glad that many of us have become friends through the PA message board. That is priceless to me. Our host, Shelagh Watkins, is definitely one of a kind. She is helpful, never snide or restrictive, kind in spirit and heart, supportive and innovative. God bless Shelagh!

Love,

Betty

What Betty said.

Annie

What Betty and Ann said multiplied by 1,000,000!

Ditto.

Is PPP in ebook? If not, Alice, put it up on Kindle as an ebook.

Does anyone remember the original list of those who met on the PAMB? and stayed in touch? Ed Voss wrote some quite cruel things to me on Facebook during the election - and Phil Whitley also had some unkindness. However, time moves on and forgiveness is the salvation of the soul. There are a few others scattered around that don't post here anymore but post on Facebook. It would be nice to have a reunion that brought everyone from the former PAMB group together again to see what they did when their 7 years were up - and how they've done or what they've done since the PA experience. Of course, there are those no longer able to post because they are experiencing that next journey in the unknown - and we miss them. There are also some people since PAMB that have become and are becoming more regular and fit right in.

This is the only forum with which I am regular.

The thing I dislike about Facebook is the "unfriend' notion. People have unfriended me because I differ in opinion. Edd threatened to do so. I do not think every one has to agree about everything to be friends. But, my feelings are not universal.

I do know that most people on this message board are open to discussing any topic. We agree to not to have to agree. I love that. How else can we grow in spirit? Having an open mind is paramount to discussion. Anger needs to take a long lost seat. Discussing with a made up mind is useless and egotistical.

Love,

Betty

Yeah, I have some pretty strong opinions; but when I am feeling intellectual I know that just as strongly as I hold to certain ideas another person has every bit as much experience and justification to hold to an entirely different point of view. Trouble is that emotional responses interfere often with intellect.