So, my husband's employer has multiple offices in all of the US states and at least one in all of the US territories. Rather frequently, opportunities for promotions pop up with the need to relocate. We look at whether we have a general interest in the location and, if so, we look at things like state and city income taxes, property taxes, cost of housing, state sales tax, etc.

In my current state, since I provide a product to Amazon, B&N, etc., rather than to individual customers, and my distributors are responsible for sales tax, etc., I can be a fiction writer without jumping through any kind of legal hoop whatsoever (no business registration, no mandatory DBA, etc.). I have heard of some US states where you are required to have at least a dba to use a pen name even though you are contracting with publishers and not selling direct to the public. In some cases, while you there are no local or state income taxes, "businesses" do face a business tax. Some states with this rule do not consider what we do as a business, some states aren't clear on their definitions.

So, I was wondering if there was any kind of resource that has state requirements listed.

Looked and couldn't find a WC thread on this

Link is to cache of The Digital Reader site because their site is pretty wonky right now.

Basically, B&N is saying the MP3 experience does not meet their high quality standards, so they are shutting down new sales (and advised buyers to re-download existing purchases ASAP for backup). They intend to re-launch digital sales of audiobooks, but have no timeframe for doing so.

At least I thought it was. However, will have to point her to authorearnings.com for another perspective on the money side.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20140517/THINGSTODO07/305080079/Two-mid-Michigan-writers-find-success-self-published-books

Ehrm...I was not expecting this. I get my information return from Apple today. I notice it's 5k less than it should be, then I notice it's a 1099-K --

Form 1099-K, Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions
A payment settlement entity (PSE) must file Form 1099-K for payments made in settlement of reportable payment transactions for each calendar year. A PSE makes a payment in settlement of a reportable payment transaction, that is, any payment card or third party network transaction, if the PSE submits the instruction to transfer funds to the account of the participating payee to settle the reportable payment transaction.

Why, Apple, why?

ETA: Also, I'm not sure, but if your $ was <20,000 OR your # of transactions was <200, you won't get an information return from Apple.

http://blog.acx.com/2013/11/25/you-asked-we-listened-introducing-direct-deposit-from-acx-2/

Update your info by November 30th to get your November payment DD.

So, if you haven't noticed, I write erotic romance and erotica. I've participated in two multi-author box sets and will do at least one more because my experience has been very positive. I see a lot of romance and erotica authors doing them. While I do shop and buy from SF & fantasy categories on Amazon, I have yet to find a multi-author box set in those categories (although I haven't search specifically for one and am referencing a lack of visibility rather than non-existence).

So

(1) do you have one (or have you done one that's no longer available) in SF or fantasy or any other genre that isn't romance/erotica
(2) if no on #1, would you consider doing one?

I ask #2 because one thing I notice is that a number of writers dismiss the romance and erotica genre as being "special" in terms of being able to make sales, but I see a ton more collaboration among writers in these two genres that help them gain audience. (Not that there isn't also a ton of backstabbing in the genre and, of course, I spend 90% of my time looking at what romance/erotica writers do to gain audience, leaving me ample opportunity to miss innovation in other genres.) Many of the erotica/romance writers I know who also write in other genres lament they cannot find enough participants to take what works from a marketing perspective in romance/erotica and deploy it with the "side" genre they write in.

I guess that leads me to

(3) What collaborative marketing efforts have you participated in within your non-romance/non-erotica genre
(4) Is there a collaborative effort you've seen in another genre you wish would translate to yours but don't think will?

Thanks for answering

Christa

ETA - I need to clarify, I'm not looking to start a box set in our out of my current genre.

Anyone know? I'm in a box set with 9 other authors. As soon as I saw the book was available on Amazon, I went to author central and it's had a nice impact on my author rank. Some of the other authors, it definitely should have positively impacted their author rank, as well, so there was the question of whether or not they claimed it and if that was the dispositive difference.

If so, yet another reason to always claim your books!

I have a lot of KB author books on my iPhone (kindle app) but it's going to take me a while to read them, that's for sure.

Right now, I'm reading Slouching Towards Kowloon by Alison Ripley (and, big mystery -- why is this no longer on Amazon?)

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/slouching-towards-kowloon-alison-ripley/1115276580?ean=2940044513402

It is fabulous, but very intense and dense on a chapter by chapter basis -- so I've been reading it between other things.

Here's the blurb

In a world destroyed by a virus called Revelation, Ruby has a problem: she's immune, and people are out for her blood. Her only chance at survival is to battle her way through the streets of Hong Kong to the viral shelters, but as her memory slowly dissipates and her body is slowly broken down by her enemies, how long will she survive?

So what KB'r book are you currently enjoying?

(There is a tip embedded in here for syncing print/ebook on B&N)

As a preliminary point, I only intended to put a few books into expanded distribution because the royalties are so low. And, while I put all the care and love I can into print versions as if I expect them to make me money, I don't expect them to do so directly. I expect them to increase visibility of my overall brand, make the ebook price look more attractive with its "discount," get some library readers into the store for my other content, increase my reader list (I note it 3 times in the book - back cover, front and back matter), and guide readers at the expanded distribution platform over to Amazon/Createspace for the rest of my print list (or preferably turn them into new ebook readers).

Here's my consternation from my first print book (Must Love Curves) to go live. It is in expanded distribution and only took a few days after going live on Amazon to go live on B&N. It doesn't have a description yet (I'm told by another author that can take up to 30 days - yikes!), and originally wasn't linked with the ebook.

I emailed [email protected] asking how to accomplish this, and (here's the tip) their reply was

The print and NOOK Book versions of your books will link automatically within 72 hours of both of them being on the site. However, in order for them to link, their titles, author names, and series names must match exactly. This includes middle names/initials (and spaces between initials), punctuation, and capitalization, so please check the NOOK Press version carefully to make sure it matches the print version exactly.

For some reason, the Createspace version came over with a colon after the title, before the subtitle (which I had in parens). So I updated that and within a few hours I had linked books. That should be a hooray! but it is, to adopt a much despised word of HR origins, "my pain point." Now (1) author page only says paperback @11.24. (2) You have to open the page to see there's an ebook version,  (3) because there's NO DESCRIPTION yet for the paperback, you have to go through a number of clicks to see the actual ebook page, which has the description.

I know I'm only one day into it being live and linked together, but the way it is now FEELS like it's going to hurt sales of the ebook on B&N beyond the effect a print version might normally be expected to have (mitigated once the description appears). Must Love Curves is my lowest seller on B&N, so not a huge deal/loss, but Pet and Curve Contract (for which I've paid for ED and am in the process of proofing galleys) are 5 & 8 on B&N for my order of sales and Curve Contract only gets me 20 cents per paperback (it was meant as a print loss leader).

Now, I can mitigate the lack of a description by ensuring they do not link up until the description appears on the paperback - and I can ensure they never link up by keeping the title slightly different. But, overall, this is making me leery of any more expanded distribution titles.

All of the above being a prelude to my asking for input/insight on how best to use expanded distribution and whether you've found the concern about sales of ebooks being more negatively impacted on B&N by having a print version available there to be true.
 
Thanks!

Christa

Go and check!

Some people are reporting the problem, and it has happened with mine, too.

Direct links work, if you have them, but a search for your pen name either comes up empty or less than all the books your authorized for the territory. Doesn't matter, if your pen name does come up, that you click on the link for your name, you still won't get all your books.

http://www.ebookscheapest.com/index.php

They say they can discount because of display ad revenue but they have no display ads and they otherwise look illegetimate as all f**k.