It's the End of the World

Okay, yes, I’ll admit it. That title is a little melodramatic, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Just not in the way you’re thinking.

Two years ago, I was contacted by best-selling romance author Erin Nicholas and asked if I would be interested in writing a book attached to her Sapphire Falls series. For those of you who don’t know, and I’m sure that’s a small number, this popular series was set in the fictional town of Sapphire Falls, Nebraska and featured some hot country boys and sassy gals trying to keep them in line. As with most of Nicholas’ books, the Sapphire Falls brand was wildly popular. So popular in fact that it was getting its own Kindle world.

Until Nicholas reached out to me, I didn’t know much about Kindle Worlds. It turns out that Kindle Worlds is an Amazon brand. It takes a series of books that are being sold on Amazon and allows authors to write what basically amounts to fan fiction. Participating authors use the characters and settings of the original author with a few rules in place. Authors aren’t allowed to write stories for main characters already written but can use those characters to support their story. As the name implies, these titles are exclusively offered on Amazon.

I was both excited and honored when Nicholas asked if I would write a book for the October 2016 release. Even though she reached out to me in April, I jumped right on it and quickly churned out the book and secured a title and cover. I couldn’t have been happier when the book was well received by Nicholas’ rabid fans. In fact, it did so well, and I had so much fun being part of the Sapphire Falls Kindle world, that I released a second title in that world.

To this day, those two books are my most reviewed and possibly highest selling. I have no doubt those books are responsible for the increase in my fan base, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Too bad all good things come to an end. Last week, I received an email from Amazon announcing they were going to discontinue the Kindle Worlds brand in the next few months. Not only that, but they’re pulling all existing titles. That means I lose the reviews attached to those titles as well as the income I net each month.

And no, authors can’t simply republish their titles. Some of us, me included, wrote under a trademarked brand. To republish would violate that trademark. Thankfully, the amazing Erin Nicholas is already on top of this and working with her authors so I will have some options in the future. I’ll keep you posted on those.

If you’re a Kindle reader, as many of us are, and you borrowed these books, you may want to consider buying them. If you don’t buy them, you could run the risk of never being able to read them again because the world is ending; the Kindle World that is.

Mess With One

The writing community is usually a pretty peaceful group. Since I only write romance, I don't know if it's true across all genres, but I find we are very supportive of one another as well. We'll reach out to each other and form friendships. We'll bounce ideas off each other, collaborate on projects and promote each other on social media. We've even been known to share our locales or characters or series with each other in an effort to cross promote.

With all of that support, you can imagine that we tend to band together against injustices. Now, I will admit there aren't many scandals in our community, but when there is one, it's epic. The latest one has turned an entire group against one author, and believe me when I say it's well deserved.

Okay, so let's go back to the beginning. Last week, several romance authors received an interesting email from one of their peers. The gist of the email was to order these authors to change the titles of their books or face legal action. Why? I could say it's because the sending author is an uppity bitch, but I won't go there. The author, whom I will not name and give any further publicity to, is insisting that she holds the trademark on the word "cocky", a word all of these authors had in their titles.

Yep, you read that right. This author went so far as to register a word as a trademark to brand her book series. The fact that she was allowed to do so is mystifying for many reasons, not the least of which is that titles cannot be trademarked. Logos can, and series titles can. Example, the Apple logo is a registered trademark for Apple Inc. Harry Potter was trademarked by JK Rowling. That means none of us can use the words Harry Potter in our book titles, but we can make reference to them in our blog posts.

Writers talk, and it wasn't long before word of this spread. As a result, romance writers across the globe have banded together to offer support to each other. There's been a lot of fun poked at the author who started it all. Just yesterday, I read a blog on the subject titled, Harry Potter and the Audacity of This Bitch. Authors are calling this whole fiasco cockygate, but it's not just authors who find it ridiculous. Book bloggers have thrown their support behind romance authors. Many have used their blogs to point readers in the direction of every cocky book there is. This has even gone all the way to the Romance Writers of America who are likely going to pursue a course of action that would lead to this trademark being revoked.

What is the author herself saying? Besides the fact that she's playing the victim card and claiming she feels attacked but is willing to turn the other cheek, she claims this is for the benefit of confused readers. Supposedly readers are searching for her books and finding someone else's. The author also alleges she doesn't want other authors to lose sales because of this. I have two words to sum up my feelings on this; bull shit.

If a reader buys the wrong book, it can always be returned. Most retailers have such generous return policies that authors cringe because readers are returning our books after reading them and we lose the sale anyway. If a reader finds my book by mistake and returns it without reading it, the sale I'm losing is one I wasn't going to have in the first place. No real loss there.

I  think her motivation was more selfish. She was losing readers. Maybe readers were finding the rest of us and liking us better. Ever heard that phrase there's no such thing as bad publicity? Seems pretty true here considering we've all had her name on our minds and social media posts the last two weeks.

Ultimately, only the author who started this hot mess knows why she did it, and at this point I'm not sure I care. I'll tell you one thing though. She can't pick this kind of a fight and then cry foul when we all hit back. It's absurd, and she learned a hard lesson. Mess with one of us, you're messing with all of us.