Wednesday, November 20, 2024

November, We Hardly Knew Ye

 What is with these blink and miss them months lately?

I know I'm getting old and my mother always said that time moves faster as you get older. But where the hell has November gone? And this time I'm not going to say it feels like it was five minutes and five years. No, this has been a five minute month all around.

Like yesterday we were standing in line to vote and now we're a week from T-day.


Speaking of Thanksgiving... my least favorite of all the days of the year. I hate that day with a fucking passion. It's the I cook food I hate all day holiday for people who also hate that food, but must have "traditional" thanksgiving food.

Okay, not my personal family. No one in my house likes turkey that much. Nor want to do some kind of formal dining event. But that's how it was when my birth family was still in my life. After my parents divorced and I got married it became my job to cook for my father and siblings. While they sat in my living room, didn't talk to me, or my kids, just to themselves, and when it was done and the criticism was out of the way, they'd mosey on back to Florida. And going back to when my mother, who was a terrible cook btw, did it, and I was the only kid she forced into helping... okay I can forgive my mother for Thanksgiving, that wasn't a her thing, that was asshole family members making demands without offering to help thing. She did try. We did a ton of food from scratch. Because we were country people and we had farm vegetables and well, it's how it was back then.

As the years went by and the crap piled high I stopped doing all scratch holiday meals. Turkey yes, mashed potatoes yes, the rest of it, nope. It either came pre-made from the store, or from a box, can or exploding tube of dough. And that's how it still is, if we do it all, minus the damn turkey, I won't ever cook another turkey as long as I live. I hate them. The smell of the carcass starting to roast makes me gag. I will bake some chicken pieces, and I might cook frozen field peas instead of canned green beans but that's as close to from scratch as I'm doing now. I don't have any extended family now. My husband's family, what's left of it, all live hours and hours away. So it's just us. And this year, if I could find a place open, I'd just order some pizza and bake some pies and call it done.

Sighs. I think I've said that all ready. And I woke up wanting pizza today. 

Anyway, this was supposed to be a post about the 12 books about to drop out of KU and possibly leave Amazon forever. I say possibly. I'm still on the fence about that, but the second leg is swinging over. I think I will hold off pulling them completely until the 30th. I still don't know. I don't want to continue to support a billionaire, but I've been informed that billionaire no longer has controlling interest in the company... but still... I still believe my sales have not been reported correctly, for many years, and well, it would be like cutting my nose off to spite my face........ My gut says do it. But I'm second thinking.

Doesn't matter, I'm about to default on my mortgage and I'm out of chances to pull out of foreclosure. Whatever I do this weekend will be too late so yeah. Either way, everything will go back into wide release, I already have 5 titles back on Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo and in Kobo plus. But the links aren't showing in search on B&N and Kobo even though they say they're published and even sent me an email, but I can't find them. 

So anyway, if you still haven't read the following books in KU you have until Friday night late to get them in your library.

And with that, if I don't get back before the holiday, I wish you catering and house keeping.

Mercy

All links below are Amazon affiliate links and I am legally bound to let you know that I may earn a small commission if you buy from it.

Double Coverage

Wicked Game

The 51st Thursday

Beyond Complicated

Need You Now

Six Ways from Sunday

Sidelined

Offside Chance

Light from the Dark

Out of the Blues

The QB Connection

One True Pair

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

I Need To Change My Banner

 I just don't want to.

I like the ghost.

Maybe I'll keep it until December.

I don't like typical Christmas décor and stuff. I like goth witchy yule stuff.

I'm not a goth witch of any religious leaning. I just like the more natural vibe of Yule and the darker Victorian era style of Christmas. I don't like the red and green color scheme. Or Santa. Sorry I really don't like the American version of Santa and honestly, not overly impressed with the Euro Father Christmas, but, I do like the colors and the cloak.

Right now, the Halloween stuff is still up, with the fall stuff, and we've started adding the Christmas stuff. No one seems interested in taking down the Halloween stuff. Like we have nutcrackers and Jack o'lanterns on the same shelf.

And I don't hate it.

The Christmas tree is black after all. And all of the Target birds have been wired to the limbs, no matter what season they come from.

It's like, you know what, screw it. Just do whatever makes you happy now. Life is short. Fuck tradition. 

SIGHS!

Sooo, it's been a week. How are we all coping?

I'm going to say, not well, but life indeed does go on. Next year will come soon enough. Right now we're just going through the motions but I think the numb is wearing off.

If you don't have trans kids or kids in school, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes right now. Saying grow up. Right now, my trans college student is in deep mourning. Next year they may not even be able to get funding for school. Next year their rights will no longer exist. Not even as their assigned birth gender. Honestly, if it doesn't affect you, and you don't care then just fuck right the hell off. I don't want you in my life. Hell, next year I could be "rounded up" for what I've written. Because you fucked around we're all in waiting mode to the finding out stage of how bad you've screwed us all, and that includes you, but you're not ready to hear that yet.

Anyway, I feel dark and gloomy. It's dark and gloomy outside. Pretty sure I'll be homeless at the end of the month, but hey, fuck my feelings right?

Choices have been made, by me, if you haven't been keeping up. I'm pulling all of my books from Amazon as they leave Kindle Unlimited. I'd like to go through and arrange new covers for most of them, and discreet print covers for all of them. Can't afford to do a single one. If you'd like to help me out with that I'll post my Ko-fi and Venmo links, I need 100 per e-cover and 200 for print wrap cover. I'd like to start with Under a Crescent Moon, then Shift in Time. Followed by all stand alone books in order of naked chestdom. 

I'd like to point out that I might be wrong about the purge of naked chest covers that will begin next year, but since every single book that I have a naked chest on is already relegated to the erotica dungeon on Amazon, I'm pretty sure I'm not. I know authors of gay fiction are having their Patreons marked as adult content and removed from search. I know certain funding sites are already moving to block content, which is why I disappeared a certain book completely.

You like erotica? Well, we're about to find out if it's even going to be legal next year. Read the Project 2025 stuff. It's there. I'm not reaching. I'm anticipating. 

The dystopian nightmare books are about to be moved to non-fiction. 

But that's next year's problem. This year is for pulling my house out of foreclosure and trying to rebuild some kind of income. It's keeping my trans children alive. It's for not giving a fuck about what other people think of me. Grin and pretend you're not a fucking moron Mercy is gone. 

I'd like to do so many things. I'm just looking for the how and where to do it. For now I'm trending to getting out of the KU trap. Putting my books back into Kobo and Kobo Plus and getting print books out for when the time comes that online books cease to exist. If you have books and other digital media don't close your accounts, you'll lose your libraries. Buy directly from indie authors when you can. That's the best I can say right now until we know how bad it's going to be.

I would say Peace right now, but I'm pretty sure I'll never say that again.

Mercy


Links to follow: Yes the Amazon links are affiliate links and I'm legally obligated to tell you that.

Ko-fi

Venmo (last 4 digits of phone number are 3340 if they ask)

Payhip Store

Books leaving Amazon on the 23rd

Double Coverage

Wicked Game

The 51st Thursday

Beyond Complicated

Need You Now

Light from the Dark

Out of the Blues

The QB Connection

One True Pair

Six Ways from Sunday

Sidelined

Offside Chance


If you're still here, thank you for your support and for not voting to fuck us all up.




Monday, November 11, 2024

13

 11/11/11

13 whole years ago I self-published my first book. Hard to believe it's only been thirteen years, seems like a lot more, but, it has exactly.

Happy BIG ONE THREE


In from the Cold




Saturday, November 9, 2024

Down to Business

 When I made the announcement the other day that I would be removing my books from Amazon I honestly thought I'd go through the whole gamut of second guessing and self doubting and eventually end up changing my mind. I've waited. I've not had one single second guess. Except to why I'm waiting until they drop out of KU and not asking for them to be removed from KU. 

I guess the answer to that is that I don't want to burn that bridge. One day I might change my mind. One day I might write something new and maybe we'll be in a different place politically. Who's to say. 

But no. Not once have I thought this is a bad idea. Hell, I feel almost like a weight has lifted from me. 

I know that I won't do well in wide release, minus Amazon. I don't do well in wide release with Amazon. And I don't do well all in at Amazon either. I haven't made more than two hundred dollars on Amazon any month this year. I used to make that a day at times. 

So, yeah, I've given up trying to understand the fluke of the past. It's the market. It's oversaturated. I don't know how to get word of mouth going... blah blah blah. Or it's more nefarious than that. Word of mouth was going. People were reading my work. I just wasn't getting paid for it. And that my friends is why, ultimately, I stopped writing. When you have one too many people write you to find out where to get your books free because whatever pirate site they got the others from doesn't have the new one... y'all, if you didn't get my books from Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords, then you stole them. I can't help you. I offered everything in Kindle Unlimited, you could have read them free with that subscription, but you and so many others chose to devalue my work, and then got mad at me when I went bankrupt.

Publishing is a business. I can write every day, and I sometimes to, for my own entertainment, but it costs money to publish. I'd like my time to mean something. But that wasn't enough. 

Anyway, that was just one of the reasons I decided to FINALLY make the decision to leave Amazon.

The other is definitely political.

And I'm okay with that.

Again, you don't have to follow suit. You can absolutely do as you please and I won't judge you. But, if there are any future books from me, they will not be there. As soon as my books fall out of KU for the final time, they will not be there. I posted the scheduled fall out dates in the previous post. You can read that.

Today, I'm spotlighting 3 books. All that will fall out early on November 23rd. And I have at least one print copy of each available to purchase from my store. Payhip link will follow. Click the covers of the books in the side bar to find the Amazon links.

Tomorrow we'll talk about other things, like... huh... not a clue.

Mercy


Find Print and other e-Books in MY PAYHIP STORE!

Happy reading








Thursday, November 7, 2024

And Here We Are!

Ah November arrived. And it's been a doozy so far.

I'm not going to talk about that here. I've said all I'm going to say on Facebook. Words are words. Actions are actions. I've said the words. Now it's time for action.

I will no longer support billionaires who actively worked to take away my and my children's rights. I won't speak the name because I no longer acknowledge his existence. What I will say is this, for the last 13 years I've made money from his site. 70% of all actual sales and less than half a cent per page read in the exclusive reading program. I've paid 100% of the production costs on all of my self published books. I paid 100% of the production for the one Audible book I was able to afford to produce. I would never advise anyone to ever get involved with Audible. The royalty split for just hosting the book is egregiously slanted to the host and not the creator. I believe with every fiber of my being that all sales and page counts are inaccurately accounted for. I believe with every fiber of my being that I am paid for far fewer copies than are sold. And since I no longer have a career than can only survive on that platform I will be pulling every book I still have listed there as they fall out of the reading service. 

This is not a decision I've made lightly or brashly or any other form of 'ly verb. It's been a decision I've been dancing around for years. Only to not follow through because the limited sales I have come from there and readers absolutely refuse to leave the reading service.

I get it. I do. Times are hard. And they're going to get harder in the next few years. Art and artists will be the first sacrifices people make when the belts have to be tightened. I do understand that. I haven't bought a book for myself this entire year. I buy my youngest books when I can and they are hella expensive. I get it. The joy of holding a book in your hands and smelling it and the art and the words. It's something I do miss. I miss walking through bookstores and buying my favorite authors. Sadly most of those ladies have all passed away now. Or given up writing. Or, became born again something or other that would see me and mine harmed. 

But as a non-binary author with trans and non-binary and queer children, I will not continue to support the business of a person who actively used his newspaper to promote harm to mine. This is my line in the sand. It is drawn.

You don't have to agree with me. You don't have feel anyway at all about that platform. That's your decision to make. You can absolutely do you, boo. But I will not be there. 

When the 26 titles I still have listed there fall out of KU they will be removed. You have until then to purchase the books you may not have. You have until then to get them into your KU library if you want them there. They will not return. I will not be closing my account because to close your account removes your purchased media. That and financial reasons as I will be paid for three months next year. I do not advize closing your account, if you're of a mind to, just stop paying for things there.

Anyway, I've decided that I will return all books to Kobo at the very least, including the books I have "unpublished" when their series ends in KU. I wish I could convince you to go to Kobo instead. Kobo Plus is the same as KU, cheaper for you, and better for the creator, as book reads count for every read instead of just the first read. 

I won't talk about the coming book purges because that's just speculation. I won't talk about any of it anymore. 

I will just do. 

Ebooks will move to Kobo, and possibly back to Apple and Barnes and Noble. I would like to change all of my covers to discreet covers. I would like to publish them all in paperback. I would need financial help to do that. I would like to ask for financial help to start with Under a Crescent Moon. I will not change the title but the cover must be redone, at least for an ebook. I would need between 150 and 400 dollars. I have a Ko-Fi account listed in my linktree in the About Me tab on the menu above. If maybe you'd like to "buy me a coffee" or something.

Again, if you want to read or purchase my books while they are still available on Amazon, I will list the titles with the dates they leave KU below. You can click the covers in the side bar to find them. If you'd like to wait until they are back in my store that would be awesome, but not necessary. If you are interested in buying the unpublished books, or the remaining signed paperbacks from me, you will find them in my payhip store, link also available in my linktree.

With love and respect,

Mercy

Titles leaving KU November 22

Double Coverage 
Wicked Game
Need You Now
The 51st Thursday
The QB Connection
One True Pair
Light from the Dark
Beyond Complicated
Out of the Blues
Six Ways from Sunday
Sidelined
Offside Chance

Titles leaving Ku December 23

Falling Back
Into the Gloaming
Courting Sin
Crazy from the Heat
Shift in Time
Behind Iron Lace
Behind Frosted Lase
In from the Cold
Cold Shadow

Leaving KU January 25 
(possibly sooner if I decide to ask for removal at the end of December)

River's Edge
Let it Go
Match Day
Long Way
Gone Astray



Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Happy All Hallows Eve Eve Eve... I think!

 So... All Hallows is November 1st right? Or what we otherwise call All Saints Day or Day of the Dead? Right?

I'm not religious, and if I was religious at one time, I was raised in the Baptist church so we didn't do such things. My parents were agnostic at best, at worst closet atheists too afraid not to believe. They took us kids to Sunday school but did not attend themselves. But I digress. Simply put, Halloween to me, is just a candy dress up day. I am not religious at all. I do understand the origins of the day because I'm more of a history geek than anything else. So hence the ask... All Hallows is November 1st? and All Hallows Eve is the night before that, like Christmas Eve, and  tomorrow is the eve of the eve so today is the eve of the eve of the eve?

Do I have this straight?

:-D

Just messing with ya.

Yesterday was a bad day. Yesterday was the 8 year anniversary of my mother's death. It hit me kinda hard so I avoided social media after posting and deleting something on Facebook. Speaking of All Hallows Eve. I buried my mother in front of her grandmother's house on November 1st. The funeral director wanted to do it on the 31st. I could not tell that little old man that I was not burying that woman in the ground in front of a house of a woman I am convinced was a witch on Halloween. So I simply told the other truth, I'm almost four hours away and I have a small child and Tuesday is the best day for me to get there. And he agreed and there we were, in front of my great-grandmother's tiny house wiped clean of the yard of flowers and the picket fence and her chickens and the date palms that stunk so badly I can still smell them, with one of her brothers just me and the funeral director and his crew and backhoe while fucking Christmas music played from my uncle's truck radio... and it was so hot and dry just like now and I couldn't watch them lower her into the vault and I never hated my brother and sister more than I did right then but I was so very wrong about how much I could hate them. Horrible people that she raised to be just like her. And I put her in the ground behind the only decent person in her family and I hope she finally found some peace. But damn... the shit that sticks with you. At least the date trees were gone and the rotting stench of over rip fruit in the Florida sun wasn't part of that day.

Strangely, one of my first vivid memories also took place in that exact place. I was 3. At my great-grandfather's funeral. The first of them to go into that ground right out front. The house was still small. I loved that house. It was a white salt box style with an added on front porch painted green. The screen door squeaked. I remember it was warm enough to wear a short dress and no sweater. I had on black buckle shoes. I can't remember if it was spring or fall. It wasn't summer. I remember my mother and I sat under the blue tent and she cried while my daddy and her brothers and a couple of men I didn't know carried the casket from the house and the screen door had to be taken off, and my aunt, with her long red hair and short brown skirt ,crying inconsolably, being supported by my great-grandmother when it should have been the other way. And wondering why we were the only family sitting. My mother was pregnant with my brother but I didn't know that, and I was 3 but I didn't think that applied to me. I remember the date trees and the green grass and the blue sky and all the flowers in my grandmother's garden yard and the concrete flamingoes that I loved. Her whole yard was flowers. No grass. Just the white sandy loam dirt that was common so close to the gulf and tall flowers and those flamingoes and the rooster crowing in the back. She had those prissy little chickens that looked like they wore fluffy pants. And when it was over and we went inside my daddy and my uncles put the furniture back and I rode on the couch while they lifted it and I remember my black buckle shoes and the smell of old fires and the handmade brooms by the door that no one wanted me to touch that day and the mirror over the fireplace had a black scarf draped over it. And that's the first memory of that house that I have and the last. No one of our family lives in the house now. My aunt rents it. Most of the family are in the front yard now. Except that damn aunt who cried inconsolably in the first memory that has tried to have the family exhumed and cast off their land so she can sell it... even the grandfather she mourned so loudly.

Memories are strange. Everything can and will come full circle. I have no memory at all of my great-grandmother's funeral, in that exact same location four years later. I was seven. You'd think I would. But I don't. At least not the kind of memory that has any visceral meaning to it. I can't remember if it was hot or cold. I can't remember the house or the garden. I can't remember anything. I remember going to the hospital with my mother when they took her in. I stayed in the car. That was the last time I ever saw her. I don't remember if the casket was in the house or what kind of shoes I wore. I was too big to get rides on floating couches. I had a brother. My mother was pregnant again, with a baby that would never be born. It was a boy. I often wonder if he'd lived if he'd be like my siblings.

I don't believe in such things as veils between this world and the next. But if I did, and the thoughts in my head, I'd say, I feel it thinning. Or maybe I'm finally ready to let go.

Either way, we are here, two days before Halloween. Whatever we believe or don't believe. However you celebrate the departed. With candy and costumes. Or ritual sacrifices. Have a good one.


Peace,

Mercy


Oh yeah, and if you're still here, you can buy my 9 shortest stories for 99 cents through the weekend. Only on Amazon.