Apparently, I've been blog bashing. I didn't mean to bash, I didn't think I was bashing. But apparently, my big mouth...or rather my big keyboard, did not portray a company in the light they deserve.

Let's return back at the middle of April to Tuesday Tools: YouHeartBooks. I explained why I was resistant to try a new platform because of past experiences I've had--not with experiences I've had with YouHeartBooks, but with other sites.

So I'd like to amend, for the record, that I was not trying to portray YouHeartBooks.com as a bad company. I am however, going to try their service because of Daniel's response to my blog! YouHeartBooks deserves that because I realize, like the Chihuahua, I was rude and didn't think about the implied meaning.

My thoughtless act made me take a look at the post again and once I went over it, I realized people might associate horrible things with a company I haven't even done business with. Despite the "Troll" in "Troll River Publications" it's not my intention to BE one. Thankfully, Daniel knows that and we're all good now.

ACTION ITEM: Sign up to YouHeartBooks.com and go HERE and see Daniel's powerful defense of his wonderful company in reply to my post. Also, please realize that I had no intention of placing the bad connotations to his company. Once he presented his case, I feel confident in his company and plan to try them out!  

I get an "A" for effort and and a "D" for execution. Even when I do all my homework, research the editor, have the manuscript edited several times--like five to seven times (and I mean by different people)--I still have epic failures. What I mean by failures is something not life threatening.

Even after the book was gone through me, checked by the author, professionally edited, sent to beta-readers and reviewers, and then published my poor author called me in a panic saying a friend of hers caught TONS of errors while reading her book for review. Now, the thing to remember is:

1. Nobody died because your book has errors.
2. An error free book is so rare, there can't be more than 10 perfect books in the world in every language combined. Some of them probably burned along with Alexandria.
3. All of the other people did not care or say or think it necessary to report the errors because they enjoyed the book that much.

Now breath.

Does this mean I pitch copy editors and line editors to the side and say "Oh well!"--not going to happen. I will fix it. If the errors are more than 10% I will have a different editor go through the book again and republish it. If the errors are less than 10% then I will fix what we know, re-upload the book and move on.

There comes a point where perfection vs. time investment is unbalanced and not worth your thought. I have uploaded a book several times over the course of readers complaining about this "one thing" and am happy to do it, especially when a fan writes and points out a typo; even when it's only a missing period. I don't mind and that's the beauty of ebooks. It's worth the fix, but not the heart attack.

ACTION ITEM: Writers, please know that to err is human, but to not freak about errors in the manuscript, even big ones after publication, is Divine! 

With the latest traditional publishing against indie authors disguised as the latest of in the censorship issue, I'd like to explain how a micro-publisher deals with NOT being the distributor and suffering the consequences.

You see, I don't see this latest mass purge of Indie eBooks as *necessarily* a bad thing. Not because I think shutting Indies up is good, not that I think censorship is good--I just know that when these things happen, Indies rise to the occasion.

Being a micro-publisher, I'm no different. We will survive. We will prevail. Because the truth is out there...and Google will find it.

I have yet to find traditional authors screaming they've had their books pulled. Even the ones that sell erotica.

I've collected data and I'm finding that the recent WH Smith freak-out was really a way to get Indie books off the market. What I've seen is it mostly affected Kobo. Please tell me if I'm wrong, though.

But the reason why this is not a bad thing is because it creates opportunity. I can see some companies already sweeping in and taking advantage. Of course there are brave souls that see this for what it is and seek the truth to what some call the Dark Net ~ I feel we are living in Nalini Singh's Psy/Changeling Series. How 'bout you?

What rises is the true meaning of Indie. If you pull the merchandise out, sellers are forced to find a way to sell their goods. This means, Indies selling their books through their own websites. It makes sense to me. It's a logical step.

So, what you might find is ~ large publishing retailers not able to quantify how much they're loosing by not having a very large chunk of a growing market. (Okay that made more sense in my head).

What I mean is...if you're selling your book out of your website, how does Amazon know what they're missing? One click buy is an awesome feature. But there are those who would click two buttons for your book. The possibilities have me thinking. All because someone decided that one bad apple means the rest are

ACTION ITEM: How hard would it be to sell off your website and direct traffic there? I'll be exploring that in the coming weeks.

I find it a bit difficult to articulate my thoughts about the recent events where Amazon, Kobo and other retailers selling erotica got complaints and tore down all the indie publishers books down.

Even Luke's Tale: A STORY OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE got torn down. I suspect they were thinking unconditional "love" -- as in sex with animals. Hey, it has a dog on the cover, it MUST be about bestiality!! Wow, get your minds out of the gutter!

It's the music industry, the film producers and the Serial TV writers industry all over again.

But I have a different take. This is an opportunity. 

It opens the doors to storytellers and an opportunity for marketers to do as indie musicians and indie film makers are doing.

People are incredibly micro-minded in this macro world. What I mean is, people who are interested in niches are able to find them. People have this whole world of the internet to search.

Those who want to live life by drinking from the fire-hose of the internet have their wish. Yet others wanting to find their "thing", their niche, have an easier time of it.

The good think about the niche is people want their niche to be small enough to know everything yet large enough to never run out of material.

More micro-publishers are going to pop-up, like Troll River Publications. And we will find our audience.

These micro-publishers will find a niche in celebrating and marketing books.

This is their chance to rise and make a living doing what they want to do. This book tear-down mishap isn't going to force indies out, the indie spirit is hard to kill.

Indies will find a way. They always have.

Indies are waking up to believing they are Small Businesses and Small Business is agile, creative, innovative. We will find a way.

I'm proud to be a indie publisher. And I mean a publisher who publishes others books, not just my own, but stories I love and believe in. I'm at the stage where publishers began. I don't see this banning of books as such a bad thing. It clears my mind to action.

I like how Nate Hoffelder asked: "Now might be a good time for indie authors to go completely indie and start supporting the truly indie ebookstore platforms like Gumroad, Indiro, and others." 

He's got a great article on the subject. It's like anything else. What I think this all equates to are people who fear the world. When you fear the world, you make everything a fear tactic.

ACTION ITEM: It might be time to sell your books through your website. I've got a plan in the works for TRP. Go ahead, ask me what it is.

So, do you see anything wrong with this cover? Yes, yes, you can pick on the art all you like. I think it's beautiful. I'm in love with it. But did you notice maybe something a little off? Like, I don't know, the author's name perhaps?

I'm all for calling my author Pa-tricka. It has "trick" in there and that was my favorite $60 I ever spent, but enough about sex.

If the name were on purpose that would be great! But it's not. We didn't catch it until my author was asked about it.

I looked at it. My author approved it. I showed it to the world and nobody said anything.

It gets posted on a site where it gets a lot of exposure and new eyes and voila! Mistake exposed! But I'd rather make mistakes. I'm going to laugh at this--oh hell, I'm laughing now. It will be fixed and I'm glad it's not on Amazon *yet* and I don't have to upload it to a thousand different websites.

And, in case you didn't know...Hers To Command will be available on Amazon June 4th, 2013. This is a great book and I'm proud to be a part of it!

You might think the Action Item might be to double check your work, but it's not. Every author, every book and sometimes even covers that got traditionally published and can't be fix in 24 hours, have mistakes. You will have them. They might even be embarrassing. But that's not the lesson. The point is to realize that mistakes will happen. That 18 editors going over your book will be circumvented by an avid amateur fan. That there is no way in heaven prayers or promises from hell can you make a book completely perfect.

Your Action Item is to live, breath, have courage to make mistakes and then correct them if you can.