For Once, Not Amazon's Fault

 Originally posted on September 4, 2020 at https://ailovestogrow.wixsite.com/mysite/post/for-once-not-amazon-s-fault

You heard right: I think this one's on my ignorance and not Amazon.

Let me back up.

I have made it a point to respond to every form of feedback I've received, to reach out and express how much I enjoy that others enjoy my book. I've made shout outs to every reviewer I can find on any site I visit on this blog, Any mention of my book in blog or forum that I know of I try to give detailed responses and the few who have reached out to me via email have gotten detailed and heartfelt replies as quickly as I receive them. If I've missed anyone it isn't because I've not wanted to respond, it is either because I have missed it or because I've been blocked.

All this includes commenting on every single Amazon (US version) review I have seen, sometimes just a glad acknowledgement, sometimes going into detail to answer a question. A few months ago, I visited the page without logging in and found all my comments didn't show up. I grumbled but chalked it up to being Amazon Shadowbanned and moved on with my life. I kept commenting anyway because I figured maybe someone with adult settings on their account could see them.

I then got an email from a fan this week and he mentioned he couldn't see it. I took a screencap (seen below) then realized no one could see it. I was mad all over again. After a bit of research, I realized this one might be on me.

Ai Love isn't my name and my Ai Love Amazon account isn't my personal Amazon account. My personal account has thousands of kindle books stored away, is Prime to watch all the shows and has been how I've purchased most everything I need for over a decade. Ai Love is where my book accounting is, but I've never purchased anything from it.

Well, it looks like to avoid spam, Amazon won't allow reviews or comments to show up in the feed until a person has purchased $50 or more through an account before stuff becomes visible to the general public. So even though I wrote the book - while it hasn't been a NYT Bestseller, it has generated hundreds of dollars of revenue - because I haven't bought anything I was blocked from Amazon's system.

Hmph! I have since rectified that problem, I think (I hope) with a stupid random spending spree. No change as yet, but hopefully within a week it will change and I'll be counted among We Happy Few.

Until then, I'm very happy to welcome 2 more silent reviewers to the Amazon page. They aren't visible on the main review page, but seeing that review total tick upward is always a delight. In lieu of the above realization, it might even be that they left whole essays of text going into the details of the story but they just don't show up because they haven't hit that magic $50 mark yet. If one of you superfans have done this, I hope this answers any questions you might have about Amazon's vague process. It might even be they are international reviews, I'll check those in a bit.

The email I got also asked about Patreon so now seems like good enough of a time to talk about crowdfunding. And do you know what I hate most about authors who use Patreon? When they are late. Late, or they provide a subpar service compared to other months. I'm paying good money, what have I done to deserve anything less than what I should reasonably expect from someone providing a service? These gripes are the reason why I decided to go the Amazon route instead of doing exactly what Tefler, McCrae and Annabelle Hawthorne are doing. Props to them for having a consistent schedule or forgiving fans when they have problems, but I'm not there yet. Most of them make enough money to survive on, I would take years to get up to that point, all the while fans would expect the same quality output and all these things aren't realistically possible for me right now.

I cannot express to you fans how important it is I get reviews for my longterm strategy. Every time you leave a review, a succubus gets an orgasm AND my book gets a little more visibility. Leaving long and detailed reviews helps give me more visibility. Comments on blogs mentioning my book, upvoting it on lists, leaving comments on my various videos on Youtube and the Hub, leaving comments here on the blog, etc. I would also be totally cool if someone started fan fiction or a Becoming Monsters Wiki. The reason I'm looking at visibility isn't just because that increases short term sales, it brings awareness of my brand to a larger audience so that WHEN I go the Patreon route, I will be generating enough revenue to justify quitting my job and working on this full time.

Ug! Marketing is such a pain and Amazon policies are not conducive for my longterm mental or even physical health! Why can't I just write and THAT BE IT?! Thank you everyone for sticking by me despite my constant complainy attitude to the world of porny literature.

For those of you who are super fans who want to help me out, I'm thinking I might have Editor-kun set up a Paypal donation button. Let me know if that's something you all want to do, I'll poke Editor-kun harder if I get the response. Until then, every KU page read is money in my pocket and every link to the Amazon page on a blog helps churn those SEO numbers higher and higher. If you want to go above and beyond (and probably get mentioned somewhere in the book) purchasing the book as a gift and sending it towards people who will give reviews (either on Amazon or their own blogs) is the gift that keeps on giving.

I think my next marketing move will be to post some chapters on Literotica to prime the pump there and get my name generating hits on that platform. Because of how KU works with Amazon, I can't post too much, but it should be enough to generate buzz.

Chapter 27 is almost done, got around 6000 words, but I've hit another continuity snag. For the next couple of weeks, I'll probably be going back through previous chapters so I can get some pieces filled in that need filling. Like I said, I'm not up to Tefler's level where every month he's pumping out another 30k-40k. I could probably keep a pretty steady 20k right now, but what about last month where I just hardly wrote anything? This is why I can't in good conscience ask people to pay me to write when I feel I could at any time drop the ball.

I love you all and hope you have a great Labor Day weekend!

Keep harmonizing!

#ailovestogrow #MOREgriping #spreadtheAiLove #reallyImcoolwithfanfiction