So, exactly five years ago (tomorrow) I published The Adventures of Whatley Tupper at Amazon.com.  I guess I could write a short essay on all my thoughts and feelings about the self-publishing process here, but I don’t want to.  I think I’ve shared my feelings already.  And if I haven’t, then I guess they’re going to remain my own feelings, at least for the time being.

But what I do want to do is, in a sense, throw up the white flag.  To whom?  To Amazon, that is.  Over these last five years, ever since I first clicked ‘publish,’ I’ve also attempted to keep my work available in other formats for other e-readers.  I’ve had an account at Smashwords for the same amount of time and never wanted my work to be exclusive to one corporate entity.  In this age of put-all-your-shit-online-for-anyone-to-read-and-no-one-discover, it didn’t make sense to me to just put all my attention and time into Amazon and their Kindle e-reader.

Well, that’s now what I’m doing.

Amazon has a program called “Kindle Select” that allowed authors to run promotions and marketing campaigns for books that they enrol in this, as long as–and here’s the caveat–their books are exclusively available for the Kindle e-reader.  I didn’t like this idea before. I still don’t really like it.  But as of now, all of my books are exclusively available through Amazon.  No one else.

Why?  Well, first of all, because the vast majority of my sales have been through Amazon.  I’d say around 90%.  Their interface and website is easy to use and works well for authors.  I have no complaints at all about the Kindle Direct Publishing.  No complaints, aside from having to maintain exclusivity in order to use the above mentioned promotions.  But, these promotions seem to work well.  And so instead of having some books available elsewhere and some only available for Kindle, I’m making it simple.  All my books are available here: at Amazon.

Will I change my mind in the future?  Surely.  That’s what makes the future so pleasant.  Things change.  But for now, I’m choosing to go all-in with Amazon and the Kindle Unlimited Select Gold Club, or whatever the hell it’s exactly called.  And, just because it’s so easy to do, I’m making all my books free on August 22, the exact 5 year date from when Whatley was available to the world… even if the world didn’t know or want it.

So, happy birthday.