It's just so hard...

Being an author is such an up and down and can get so incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I feel like I can't win and the odds are always against me. It is so difficult to convince readers to leave a review on Amazon or some other book review site, like Goodreads or BookBub. Amazon makes everything extra hard by simply deleting reviews sometimes and you get no warning whatsoever. I mean they get it in their head that a review is done by a fake account or the author paid someone to do it and a moment later, the review is gone. People get blocked and banned from reviewing on Amazon and not because they did something wrong, but because Amazon and their bots decided something fishy was going on and they give you no chance to defend yourself.

And to be honest, why does it matter if someone gets fake reviews? If authors want to play the dishonest game, just let them. Future readers will figure out soon enough that the book might not be as awesome as the reviews claim. Why is it that trolls can post garbage and sometimes even personal attacks, yet the good reviews keep disappearing?

If I had thousands of reviews, I would not make a fuss, but I don't. I am struggling as it is and so every review taken away again hurts. I feel like Amazon does what they can to work against us authors, especially Indie authors. How is that fair?

Yes, I am aware that this blog post sounds a tad negative, but we (self-published authors) put so much work, time and money into everything we do and you get to a point of feeling burned out.

I think a lot of people don't realize how hard it is to write and self-publish a book. The writing doesn't happen in a blink of an eye. It can take weeks, months and sometimes even years. You write, you edit, you write, you edit and then you edit some more. It often feels like it never ends. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to find a good editor, someone who gets you and your writing style, but editing is not cheap. You need a professional-looking cover because everyone does judge a book by its cover. Then you have to either find someone who formats your book or you have to do it yourself.

We also don't make a lot of money, especially when we don't have a publisher or agent behind us who help us advertise and market our books. Amazon pays very little royalties, and that means we have to set prices for our books higher than we often want, so we get a bit of money. Once you get to the point of wanting to turn your book into an audiobook, you have to invest even more. Narrators want to earn too and it is pretty expensive, but I don't even blame them for asking so much because it takes a lot out of you to produce an audiobook. I tried that with my first Christmas novella after getting a wonderful and professional sound system for my computer for Christmas one year. I did not expect the work that had to take place. It took me weeks to record because you make mistakes and then have to redo it. Your voice suddenly sounds different and you have to redo it. And then when you have it all ready and try to encourage people to buy it, very few do and you feel like you just wasted weeks for something nobody else seems to appreciate.

I had people ask me to translate my books into German. Trust me folks, I want to do it, but I simply can't do it all. It takes so much time and I am having so many book ideas and started projects, translating on top of that is just not possible at the moment. And it has to be worthwhile too. 

I just released my first professionally done audiobook after being told more than once that they would buy my book if it is an audiobook. Now it's available for purchase and I only sold a few copies so far. That's a lot of money gone that I might not even get back. If the sales don't pick up, I don't think I can even afford turning more of my books into an audiobook and it is absolutely thrilling to take that next step. I love my narrator and the way she read my book and I would like to work with her again, but you can't keep having money go out, if nothing comes back in.

I know many authors struggle with marketing and finding their audience and oftentimes family and friends expect free copies, but believe it or not, we don't get those copies for free either. We get it cheaper, but we still pay for it. Amazon even takes money for us for ebooks. We get most of it, but not full royalties.