Harmony’s Book Theft on Amazon continues and New Book Store!
First of all, a very belated Happy New Year! 
Secondly, do you like my big, long, curly wig?!?!
Now, the reason for my delay in getting back to you: Unfortunately, my gorgeous Grandson gave me a sickness bug which hit me around 4 days into the new year after a couple of days of feeling wobbly, which though it lasted only three days, it left me with acute gastroenteritis and a raw stomach.
That meant three days of cold turkey off all of my medication and two weeks on a bland diet (yuk) and still unable to take the most important of my medication relating to pain relief and symptom easing. All of which to say, I’ve been out of it and have needed a lot of recovery time.
Some good news!Whilst I’ve been recovering, my brain came back faster than my body. So, with enforced bed rest, I got on my laptop and iPad and did some researching into Amazon alternatives, seeing as they keep letting sellers sell my paperbacks without my permission after A TON of emails back and forth. I still need to decide between straight D2D or Smashwords, which is linked to D2D. I’m leaning towards Smashwords, linked to D2D. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Even better news!Anyhoo … I found this great software, which has lots of fab and fun things in there.(More on the software on a later post!) I had an old product of theirs, and as part of their brand new massive suite, they now have a V2 of the old software plus lots and lots more, which gives me the option of a personal store or a simple, quick and easy, all done-for-you option for a standard store, which is what V1 offered. (And, no, I’m not selling anything!)
What makes this Great?Take a look at my new sales page, independent of Amazon and with lots of payment options: https://harmonykenthub.com. While I did successfully active Stripe payment options as well as credit card and PayPal, Stripe has decided not to play ball for some unknown and, I’m sure, profound reason! 
I love the look of the store, and the software made this so easy to set up.
For now, the store is able to offer PDF downloads only due to Amazon doing something at their ‘back end’ (appropriate term, don’t you think!?
), but the software’s tech team is working on a solution to get us publishing and downloading ePubs to Amazon as well as the independent store, oh and audiobooks too, yay!
After keeping my ebook prices low for years, and seeing the industry charging often over £10 and upwards more, I’ve decided to raise my prices a little—especially with the royalties about to drop by half on Amazon as each book is no longer part of Kindle Select—of course, they’ll always be at least a pound/dollar cheaper on my own store. Feeling my way forward with this and will wait to see what happens. I’m fed up of the expectation that indie authors charge the minimum allowed on Amazon of 2.99 outside of promotions, when the traditional publishers charge so very much more. We work so hard to make our books, and we deserve a decent income from the sales of our hard work. I have limits on what I’ll pay, and so many customers don’t care. Also, if it’s an author I know and trust, I have more flexibility on what I’ll pay. How it will work does depend on how big and loyal a customer base I have, yes, and still it’s time for me to make changes after 12 years or so of charging the same. What about inflation? We’re affected too.
In the Meantime …I have a bunch of personal stuff to take care of, and then ned to sort out the mess with my books on the big A and upload them elsewhere. After that’s sorted, I promise I’ll be back and will get to your blogs at least once a week whenever I can! And I can’t wait to show you all the great things I have planned using the new tools I now have, which have opened so many doors for me and given me options when my illness has closed so many doors.
That’s it from me for now, and I’d love to hear from you in the comments.Oh boy, do I miss you all! Hopefully, once I’ve moved my books, and got an updated prescription from yet another new medicinal cannabis clinic sorted out, I’ll be able to be around online more again. Also, I hope that once I get that dosage where I need it, I can start to reduce some of the nastier pharmaceutical meds I’m taking, which have unpleasant side effects. And I can’t wait to join you all, even though I’ll be starting afresh as a catch up after this long is, of course, impossible and counterproductive to getting live with you all again! 
