I’ve had it with Amazon. I appreciate that it permitted me to become a published author and develop a fan base, but in recent years their policy toward authors has been increasingly unfair. As the saying goes, they keep the elevator and give us the … short shrift. I realized I also don’t care about the royalty money. I make more from my Amazon capital gains than I do from the books. They treat us shareholders a lot better than us authors. So I’ve made all my books free. No strings attached, no ads, just free in digital form. For now it’s only in PDF form, but I may eventually upload a series of html pages, too, for those who want to read in a browser if I find there’s a demand for that. I’ve left the books on Amazon for now and the links for those versions, including the audiobook of Cached Out and all the paperbacks, but I’m in violation of Amazon’s terms of service for making the digital versions free and will probably be kicked off of that platform eventually. Just click on the link below (or My Books in the menu above) for the Cliff Knowles Mysteries page and download the PDF version of any of my books for free.
OnWords
Reflections of a writer on language and life
I think I have read all the “The Rat” series as I am/was a Geocacher. My back and legs are so bad now that I have to read about other folks exploits. Bob Smith aka Petite Elite
š and double rats!
I love paperbacks!!
Sorry to see them go.
Guess I’ll have to read in whatever form I can get.
Happy caching!
KMCRV Geocaching
Have read all of your books and enjoyed each and every one of them. Sorry for the issues you have faced with the GIANT. Thanks for thinking of all of us loyal fans! Hope you will continue to write – As a geocacher and an avid mystery reader I look forward to more!
So sad that the people who really make the product (authors) are being undercut by the very platforms that are making the money.
I hope that you find another solution – glad you are in a position to do this not only for the $$$ – but for the altruistic love of writing. But you deserve your dues.
Good luck from Africa
Thanks to all who commented. Note that all the books are still available both as Kindle and paperback for now. I do not plan to make my next book a paperback, but I will upload it to Kindle and might upload to the Amazon paperback platform for the convenience of those who prefer that format, even if I don’t make any money there. There are complicated rules about those – cover graphic of specific dpi required – text not available elsewhere for a lower price (like free on my own site), etc., so it may not happen.