I want to gripe but ...

In keeping with my personal challenge of trying not to gripe, I'm breathing deeply and letting the situation go, and calling it done. Apparently, my latest little book has "too much in common" with other books and "freely available information on the web," so KDP wanted me to remove it ASAP from my bookshelf in there. Fine, though it  doesn't make me very happy, because let's face it. A LOT of nonfiction books in print, with the same general area being covered, are going to have similar information to other books and quite possibly even to information that is free on the web. This is not a surprise to me, nor to other indie authors, nor should it be to KDP/Amazon. I can't tell you how many books I've found on gardening or cooking or recipes that had information that was the same or extremely close to that found in another book or on the web. So fine ... for now, my new books will be only available through Etsy, which is going to ridiculously limit my sales (and thus my royalties), and eventually, I'll have to get a regular standalone website to deal with things, but I'm okay with all this.

I'd planned on a standalone site sooner or later anyhow, and for the moment, I can make blogger and Etsy do a good deal of work for me, but man, my royalties are going to go in the toilet now. Grrr. Ah well, such is life. On the upside to this, it does mean I don't have to figure out how to pay for a license for MS Office after all, so that KDP will accept the files when they upload and leave the darn table of contents intact in the PDFs. They work fine on my computer, but once KDP uploads the PDFs I've been using, the TOC goes kaput. Not much reason to be in all the authors groups on FB I am in now, as they were going to help boost my sales on all the new book ideas I have. And most of them only allow you to promote your book if it's a Kindle book. ARGH.

So my goal to become a well-published indie author has taken a bit of a nosedive, thank you Amazon. I love shopping there and all, but good night, this kind of thing is insane when you consider that there are tons of books out there about oh ... square foot gardening, raising chickens and choosing the right ones for you, goat care, how to fix your car, knitted/crocheted baby outfit patterns. Seriously? A 53-page book of make your own mixes and condiments type thing is just soooo like six thousand other books? I can go through my recipe books and find a recipe for carrot cake in just about every one of them, and they all have the same basic ingredients and directions that are almost the same, word for word. But that's OK, because they came from big-name-publishing houses! The little guy, once again, hasn't got a chance if you aren't publishing through the big guy. Oh well ... time for Plan B, which is the eventual standalone site. Still, I have a few there already that they didn't quibble about, and I can adjust my author page to help direct people to the blog, which has a tab for the Etsy store ... and later change that to go to the standalone site with a full store there. I'll fix things 'em. Etsy's fees aren't horrendous, so I'll get more of the money anyhow, and with a standalone site, I'll get it all. Hah!

Picked up my new bifocals today and getting used to them is going to take some doing. They are the progressives, no lines, and I'm supposed to be able to look through the middle, more or less to do computing and reading and such. So far, I'm still looking down my nose for close work, and getting used to them. It'll take a few weeks for my eyes to adjust, I know, but it's a bit of a pain in the meantime to retrain my eyes again. I may have to go back and forth between my old readers and the bifocals till my eyes adjust, though that will just make it take longer, I know. It's just darned difficult to see correctly right now. Yeesh.

So today has left me awfully annoyed. Grr. But the chores are all done, so the rest of the weekend is mine to relax! Which means setting up the new plinking targets (metal rotating zombies - the little metal paddles go wheee around the crosspole when you hit the target, lol. Meant for BBs but it'll work for target practice for the .22. Time for some fun! Only I do wish .22 long rifle shells were easier to get. NOBODY had any today.)

Not doing books today though, this situation with Amazon has me just too depressed.