Why can’t I buy [book] at [retailer]?
If you buy your ebooks on Apple, Nook, Kobo, Google … or anywhere other than Amazon, you may be thinking that that store seems to be missing some of my titles. Yes – it is. And my apologies for that – you’re probably a little frustrated at that discovery. I would be, too! But there’s a solution … you can still get my books.
First, a little explanation: authors like me are faced with a bit of a catch-22 when it comes to offering our books through the various distributors, and readers like you feel the pain. I could sell all of my books on all of the different vendors, but if I were to do that, it would actually cost me money in terms of lost sales on Amazon. Like … a lot of money. Amazon accounts for something like 70% of the ebook market today, and when your books are exclusive to Kindle, you get a number of benefits that earn you more money from them. And right now, every penny counts – I’m working my butt off to try to make writing a full-time gig, which is no small feat.
[So why have ANY books available on other sites? “That’s just teasing us!” you say. Yeah, I know. That’s probably how it feels. Short version: because I wanted to make some of my books permanently free so that readers could “try before they buy.” And to do that, you need to prove to Amazon that it’s free elsewhere, so they will match the price. It’s annoying, and stupid. Anyway, sorry again.]
But … there are still some relatively easy ways you can read my books:
- You can buy the book(s) on Amazon.com, then read them via the free Kindle app, which you can download for your smartphone or tablet. You can even read on your computer’s browser at https://read.amazon.com/
- If you want to read those books for FREE, you could even sign up for a free trial of Kindle Unlimited – it’s like NetFlix for books, and the first month is free (you can cancel before it renews, I won’t tell!)
- My books are also DRM-free, meaning you can buy them from Amazon, then download and convert them into epub format using free software like Calibre, which would enable you to “sideload” them onto your e-reader or tablet. I actually use Calibre as part of my publishing process – its very simple, user-friendly, open-source software.
- If that sounds like too much of a hassle (ain’t nobody got time for all that!), I’m also happy to convert the files for you. Simply forward me your purchase receipts from Amazon for whatever books you decide to buy, and I’ll email you back with epub copies of those books. Too easy.
…so there you go. Sorry again for the frustration and inconvenience, but I hope you’ll consider using one of the options above to continue reading my work. You can find links to all of my books here. Thanks for reading!