Why I WON'T be Releasing Findley's Lass to iBooks

Those of you who know me, know that 99.9999999% of the time, I am a very positive, upbeat, life is just a bowl of cherries kind of person.  I'm going to vent for a minute and I do hope you'll bear with me.


It is sometimes amazing how the passing of time, even just a few months, can make one forget something painful. Take for instance the absolute mind boggling, inane, frustrating, make-a-girl-cuss-like-a-drunken-sailor, hoops that one must jump through in order to get a book published to iBooks.

I have spent the last four hours trying to format my second book, Findley's Lass, to meet the not-so-user-friendly format requirements set forth by Apple. I finally made a decision. Apple can't have my book.

Here is one more reason why Amazon/KDP beats, hands down, any other e-reader/self-publishing device on the planet. It is EASY! If anyone wonders why B&N and Apple can't catch up to KDP, just try uploading a book to either Apple or B&N. Then mosey on over to KDP. Wherein it takes literally hours and hours of your time trying to get the book to sync and format correctly so that it can be read on a Nook or an iPad, it takes only minutes at KDP. And this is not an exaggeration.

Another reason why B&N and Apple can't catch up is how they treat their self publishing authors. Just try to get some help from either of those places. The message boards, those that do exist, are impossible to follow. You're often left feeling like you've been trudging around in wet sand for hours. It can take days to get a response from either B&N or Apple and usually the answer has nothing to do with your question.

KDP? I usually have an answer in very short order. It will either come from one of their very friendly staff or I can find it at the message boards. Thus is not the case with the other places.

I know there are lots of people (because I hear from many every week) who ask if my book is available for their NOOK or their iPad. At first, I wanted to experiment with releasing Findley's Lass to KDP, NOOK, iBooks and Smashwords. Just to see how it would do if I released it every where at once. Quite frankly, it isn't worth the aggravation or the tears.

So, in the interest of self-preservation and so that my family isn't subjected to yet another nuclear melt-down of epic proportions, I will not  be releasing Findley's Lass to anywhere  but  KDP.

Am I missing out on sales with decision? Highly doubtful.  When I released Laiden's Daughter to apple and B&N and Smashwords several months ago, I sold a grand total of NINE books at those places. Count them: 9. Nine. NINE.

How many did I sell that month at Amazon? Well over 3500. I'm not a genius, but even I can figure out that the headaches, the beating-my-head-against-a-brick-wall, baptism-by-fire, lesson is futility that is these other places, simply isn't worth it.

So I'm going to kick back, enjoy a nice quiet evening with my family and forget about the past four hours of my life that I'll never get back.