Change on new release pricing

It's with A LOT of thought that I have made the decision that I will no longer release at .99 cents. This recent release I was contacted multiple times about missing the .99 cent price. I sent out a notice letting readers know of the release date, I sent out an email the day of release and then resent an email to everyone who didn't open the other email. I also shared it multiple times on Facebook, across Twitter, and Instagram. I did everything I could to make sure my readers knew it was live and available and that the price was changing. When I changed the price it took Amazon a full 24 hours to change it.

People have had questions about the release date, what I say versus what's on the information on sales page. So here's why there are different dates.

I hit publish usually Thursday through Draft2digital for Apple and Nook books because it takes a day or so for it to go live and I need the links to share on Monday for the advertising I do. I hit publish on Saturday because Amazon has this thing called an algorthim that it uses to figure out who to show my books to. When you go on amazon or you receive a book about a book you might be interested it, it's the algorthim at work. I put it out there without telling people so readers searching for books like mine find it on their own and Amazon knows to send it to all the people looking for my kind of book. I have good, valid reasons for what I do. I'm not asking you to understand them and you might not but I do it for reasons that are important to me.

Honestly, I have to say it was painful to hear readers complain they didn't get my book at .99 cents. I'm a fast reader and it takes me two to three hours to finish one of my books. To hear readers complain that it's not worth less than $2.00 an hour to read one of my books, not going to lie it hurt my feelings.

My books are around 70-80k words, His Dirty Bargain was 93k. It takes me on average an hour to write 1200 words., that's just the first draft. When I'm done it takes at least two days of tearing it apart to make it better. I pay a beta reader to tell me everything wrong with it, once she's done I spend another three or four days trying to fix it. After that, one more edit which takes another two days. Then I spend about $500 to have it edited. Two more days on those edits. Then one more time I do my own edit. All of that work and $3.99 is too much?

No, just like I know I'm better than half a penny a page and maybe $1.50 per book read I'm not in KU I'm done releasing at .99 cents. It will make my life easier and if I lose readers I guess it's going to happen but I'm done losing my sanity over doing my best to make 99 cents happen.