Now I'm Just Getting Crabby

My inbox has been very quiet lately. No, that's a good thing! That's not what's making me crabby. It was my choice to unsubscribe from a bunch of mailings. They offered nothing of value, but I apparently kept holding out hope that they might one day, so I would open and scan them. All I found were ads dressed up as newsletters. No, I don't want to attend your virtual seminar, I don't want to buy your book, "The Secret to Becoming a Best Selling Author", I sure don't want to purchase some other indie author's novel that you just happened to publish. 

Everybody's got their hand out. Hey, me, too! But at least I'm not spamming strangers to get them to fork over money. I guess technically, I don't have my hand out; maybe one finger (no, not that finger). I do try, from time to time, to convince people to buy my novel, but my beckoning isn't working. 

What's making me crabby today is all the newish websites that have sprung up as a means of draining authors' coffers dry. If the established promo sites don't work, why are more being created? Well, because even the small operations make money. "Pay us to promote your book and you won't believe the results!" Yes, I will believe the results--you won't move any copies of my novel, either. "We have 40,000 dedicated subscribers." Do you? How dedicated are they? Did they tell you they're very dedicated? And even if you do, 40,000 isn't many. BookBub has 20 million subscribers, and last time I advertised, not one person bought my book.

Then there's the magazine, the one that Writer Beware says isn't a scam, per se, but more of a pay-to-play scheme. After reading the blog post's comments, I went ahead with the interview, which was free. I only wanted content for my website, and no one can say the interview wasn't legit. Other commenters stated that their interviews did show up online after about a month, so when mine didn't, I emailed my contact there, who assured me it was "with the editor". Now, they're soliciting me for money for a print feature (as if). All I wanted was the damn interview to link to, but they can't even manage to accomplish that. Every time I spy that solicitation message in my inbox (yes, I hung onto it), I get crabby. No, I don't fall for scams. Nobody's getting my money. But free stuff with no dollars changing hands? Why not? Apparently, I can't even score the free stuff, but they still want to sell me more. But it's an "opportunity"! Sure--for them.

I've said before that I'm in the wrong line of work. If I really wanted to make money, I'd create a site that published newsletters, and charge authors for inclusion. Or maybe publish a fake magazine. Even easier for me (and who doesn't like easy?) would be to start a social media-only promo company. A few posts a day? Shoot, I could get my work done in ten minutes, tops. Then sit back and count my money.

In light of my crabbiness, I went ahead and raised the price of my novel. Yes, that's right. What's 70% of zero? Why, it comes out the same whether my book is priced at $2.99 or $3.99, and $3.99 is more in line with the quality of my work. Everyone else can devalue me, but I don't have to devalue myself. Maybe next month I'll increase it to $4.99.

Bottom line, while I'm now getting fewer emails, I'm getting more aggravating ones. I'm considering not even opening my email window...for at least a while.