An Atomic Year

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’d seen some hype online about the book but hadn’t read it. I’m sorry I waited so long. It was definitely worth it. It is all about making small (aka atomic level) changes to create huge results. 

What really hit me was the story about the English Biking Team. Having not won medals in international competitions in years, they knew they needed to make a change. But instead of focussing on the athletes, assuming they were already giving their best, they looked around the edges for small things they could do. They tested tires, gears, sports drinks, everything they could do to increase the team’s performance by even a tiny bit. And slowly it began to work, they began to win more and more competitions. 

What about my writing?

I’ve always been a natural story teller. Actually writing down those stories took a level of discipline that escaped me for years. Meanwhile, grammar, let’s just say it took me learning a second language to come to terms with English grammar. 

Publishing is a mixed bag. Parts of it I love. I love playing with technology and I’ve learned to do a good job with Indesign and Photoshop. However there is still more to learn. As with everything, consistency and discipline has been a lifelong problem for me. 

Finally there is the bane of my existing, marketing and promoting. I’ve never quite figured out what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve tried lots of things but none of it paid any results for me. 

So one of my main goals for this year, besides getting back to writing regularly, is to work on atomic changes around the edges of my writing career. This means making sure they are published in all appropriate channels. (I have several books on Amazon that are not exclusive there but haven’t been published on Kobo or through Draft2Digital.) 

I want to slowly to look at making new covers and writing new blurbs for all my books. If I can I might even look a bit deeper, at re-edits and new formatting for some of my books. I also need to work on my blog, get my newsletter up and running again. 

My new cover for Bear Naked. More to come…

What else?  Do you have any suggestions. Are there things I should be doing to promote myself? Things you don’t want to see? Let me know in the comments. 

A New Look for Bear Naked

I’m trying to give some of my old books a glow up with new covers and blurbs. My goal is to make covers more inline with the genre of the books and hopefully get some more sales.

What do you think of Bear Naked’s new cover?

Blurb:

“I like to look my prey in the eye when I kill it.”

The words filled Amanda with fear and anger. But later they would fill her with foreboding. Who was the man? Why did he want to kill her? Who were the others that he mentioned? 

Amanda Burnson was a normal teenager, if you counted living in a cabin on the edge of town with your Neo-pagan uncle and being friends with two gender queer youths as normal. She definitely wasn’t involved in anything that caused scary looking men to want to kill you. 

Her uncle seems to know something, but he’s got his hands full helping the local DNR with a wild wolf. Her new boyfriend, Connor, also seems to know something, but he won’t say what and she already has a different suspicion about him and his friends, like that they are werewolves. But that’s crazy, isn’t it? 

Have you read Bear Naked yet? If not head over to Amazon to buy your copy today.

Update for 2023

As I’m sure many readers have noticed, I took a short sabbatical from writing which turned into a rather long sabbatical. During that time I have made more than a few life changes. I’ve learned languages and moved countries. I’ve changed careers in the process, now teaching English online for a living. 

With all that on my plate, writing has taken a back seat. But my goal for 2023 is to get back to both writing regularly and hopefully publishing*. 

Right now I have decided to finally start publishing the fourth book in the Bear Naked series on Wattpad. Check it out today! 

I also hope to get back to blogging regularly. 

So that’s it. Not much but it’s a start. 

*publishing costs a fair chunk of money for editing and cover art, and contrary to what some YouTube marketers will tell you, there is no guarantee you will make that money back. As such I’m not sure how much publishing I will be doing at this point. I can’t afford to pay out a thousand dollars with no guaranteed return. 

How to Post a Review (4)

Amazon:

Amazon makes it easy to post reviews. They have numerous ways to submit your review. For starters you can find any product on their site and find a button to submit a review. You don’t have to have bought the book through Amazon to review it on their site. However if you did purchase it on Amazon they will flag your review with “verified purchase” so readers will know. How much weight that carries I couldn’t tell you.

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In their quest to get reviews, Amazon Kindle apps will also prompt you to write a review at the end of each book. It can be convenient but sometimes you aren’t ready to review the book. (You want to think through what you are going to say, like a good reviewer.) Or typing on a device keyboard isn’t ideal. You could always post a short, simple review and then come back later on your home computer and edit it to something more substantial.

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You can also check your order history under the account tab and see a list of all the books you’ve bought from the site. You can add a review from that list as well.

Goodreads:

Search for a book in this box
Search for a book in this box

Once you’ve set up a Goodreads account, search for a book. Once you find the book you are looking for you can click on the box that says “want to read” and edit it to “read.” Or you can simple click on the number of stars you would give the book. Either will add the book to your read shelf. Once you’ve rated a book you will be prompted to “add review.” Click on that and you will be given a text box to write your review. That’s all there is to it.

Add books here
Add books here

A lot of Goodreads veterans get creative with their reviews, adding Gifs and what not. If you are tech savvy, there are plenty of help sites that will tell you how to do that. It’s not necessary.

Other ebook retailers:

While none of the other ebook retailers are invested in reviews the way Amazon is, they all have some sort of button to add a review. And even if the company behind the site doesn’t use the information, they are still valuable to other readers.

Most ebook retailers have some button to make it easy to post a review.
Most ebook retailers have some button to make it easy to post a review.

Book blogging isn’t difficult but setting up a blog is beyond the scope of this article. There are plenty of good resources out there for those that want to set up a blog.

Conclusion

That’s all there is to doing a book review. To recap you should write reviews because it will help you and your fellow readers find the best book. It will also give you a way to contribute to the wider culture of our society.

There are many sites that allow reviews but Goodreads and Amazon are the two that encourage reviews the most, and are the easiest to use. Reviews on other ebook sites are useful and you should consider writing reviews on whatever website that you buy books from.

Writing reviews can be as simple as saying you liked a book or did not. However the most helpful reviews often give some details about why they did or did not like a book. They reference similar books that readers might be familiar with. They help direct other readers towards books they will like and away from ones that they won’t. That means even negative reviews can be helpful, as long as you don’t try to use it as a platform to attack an author you don’t like.

So that’s it. Get out there and write some reviews.

How to Review Books (3)

I am going to break this down into two parts, how to write a review and how to post a review. I will start with how to write a review. If you are new to reviewing and it makes you nervous, feel free to write your review out in Word, OpenOffice or some other text program first and then copy it when you post it. If you are old hat at reviews, you can simply write it into the provided space while posting.

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How to write a review

1. How to write a simple review: Reviews don’t have to be book report. This isn’t high school. Amazon requires a minimum of twenty words. Goodreads doesn’t have any minimum requirement. If you are stressing about what to say a simple “I really liked it” or “it wasn’t for me” on Goodreads is better than nothing.

For Amazon here are several twenty word reviews.

“I liked this book a lot, it held my attention from start to finish. I would recommend it to others.” (20 words)

“It was a really good insert genre and readers who enjoy that genre will probably also enjoy this book. I know I did.” (23 words)

“I usually like science fiction books but I couldn’t buy into the premise of this book and that ruined it for me.” (22 words)

2. How to write positive reviews: One of the things that puts off many would-be reviewers is how to write a positive review. It’s ironic, it’s books we love that make us want to write a review, but figuring out what to say about them is often harder than reviewing a book we are critical of. Writing a positive review is an art form.

Many five star reviews are nothing but vague praise. This isn’t helpful to the next reader and often comes across as fake. You see glowing praise and assume the author got his/her best friend to review the book. What should you do instead?

Take a minute and think about what you loved the most about the book. Then write about that. “I really loved how the main character wasn’t the stereotypical heroine, but felt like an ordinary girl like me.” “I loved the way the author made the setting seem so real, even though this was a fantasy book.”

Mention similar books. Some of the most helpful reviews I’ve read, positive and negative, mention other books. “It was a gritty fantasy in the same vein as Game of Thrones” tells the reader two things. If they liked Game of Thrones, this might be a book they’d like. If they don’t like Game of Thrones, they should maybe pass on this book. When readers get directed to the books they will love, everyone wins.

3. How to write a negative review: Yes, I am going to tell you how to write a negative review. I am going to give you permission to write negative reviews, even if they are about my books. Because I believe negative reviews can be as helpful, or more so, then positive reviews. I’ve often been swayed to buy a book by a negative review, because the reviewer was angry about something that I personally like. Negative reviews direct the wrong readers (meaning readers that won’t like it anyway) away from a book, and that’s as critical to success as finding the right readers.

When writing a negative review it’s helpful to keep a couple things in mind, the first and most important is that it ideally shouldn’t be about the author. It’s about the book. Be clear about that. If you feel that the author is advocating something immoral or is offensive because of something they said or believe, it can be hard to separate that out. But if you use the review button to unleash personal attacks you will likely find your review flagged and removed. Instead focus on the book and why you didn’t like it.

We don’t all like the same thing. No book is going to be universally praised. And that’s okay. You didn’t like this book, but someone else might. The more specific you are, the more this will come through. A lot of readers don’t like first person narratives, but then again, a lot of best sellers have been told through that point of view. So if that was what turned you off to the book, say so. Different readers have different tolerances for sex, violence, controversy, cliches or mediocre writing. Comments like “too much sex” will warn some reader away while bringing others to the table.

How to post a Review

Where to write a review (2)

There are lots of places that you can review books. The most obvious is Goodreads. Goodreads is a social media site designed around books. You can rate, review and list books. You can see what friends have read and compare your taste in books. You can start discussions about book related topics or about individual books. It integrates easily with Facebook if you want to share your latest discovery with your Facebook friends.

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The other obvious place to review books is the site where you bought the book. Amazon is the biggest retailer at this point and many people review books on Amazon. But the Nook, Kobo, iBooks and other ebook retailers all have reviews as well.

If you want to take your reviewing to the next level, there are hundreds of sites that will allow you to host a blog about books. Checkout websites like WordPress or Blogger if you are interested in posting your reviews to a standalone site.

How to Review Books

How to Write Reviews

When I talk to readers about reviews I often hear that they would like to write a review for their favorite author, but aren’t sure how to go about it. So here is your complete guide to why, where and how to write book reviews.

Why write a review?

When asked why reviews are important, a lot of authors tell you how reviews help them. I’m going to tell you how writing reviews helps you, the reader.

1. You get more books from your favorite authors

Being an author is a long, often frustrating process. Most writers don’t earn a living from their novels. They squeeze writing time in between paying jobs, family obligations and that thing we call life. It’s not always easy.

What keeps us going? The dream of someday making a living at writing. The goal of connecting to readers through our stories. The desire to share something with the world for yet other writers.

The first dream requires a combination of talent, luck and hard work. Many of the things that lead to success are out of the writer’s control. One of them is social proof, proof that people are reading the book and enjoying it. One of the main examples of this social proof is reviews. That is how reviews lead to sales, when people see that others are reading a book, they get curious as to why and they check out the book.

But reviews also let the author know if their writing is connecting with readers in a meaningful way. They tells us if the stories we are creating are reverberating with the rest of the world.

Giving an author those things keeps them motivated. That means they will produce the next book that much faster, let you know what happens to the characters you’ve grown to love. So write a review.

2. Reviews gets you better books from Amazon.

The secret to Amazon’s success is that they aren’t focussed on making a sale, they are focussed on making the next sale. They are constantly updating their search algorithms and advertising to show you want book you want to read next. They can do this through demographics, previous searches and similar searches, but to get pinpoint accuracy they need to know what you liked or didn’t like. That’s why they are so big on consumer reviews. When you give a book a positive review on Amazon, they will show you similar books. When you give a book a bad review, they will show fewer books like that. The more you review, the better the search results will be.

3. You get to be part of the conversation.

Critics will tell you that public book culture is dying. We used to carry our favorite books as badges of honor. We saw somebody reading the latest thriller and we had a conversation starter. Now people increasingly read on electronic devices. They do their socializing there, too.

Book culture is not dying, it’s just moved online. Sites like Goodreads allow us to rate our favorite books, review them, talk about them and share them. We can see what friends are reading and how they are reacting.

And this new book culture is far more democratic. Publishers choose only a fraction of stories to publish. It used to be that a few magazine reviewers got to tell us if a book was good or bad. Certain stories were seen as having “literary merit” and others not.

Now anyone can have a say, even you. Culture is nothing more than the shared beliefs and experiences of those in that culture, and you can help influence and shape where our culture is going. Think there aren’t enough women/minority/diverse writers in a certain genre? You can use your Goodreads account to talk about women or minority writers you’ve read, or to search out more.

Where to write a review?

The Real Cost of Self-Publishing (Or How Not to Get Scammed.)

This landed in my inbox today and for some reason it really got under my skin.

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I get emails just like this almost every day. I usually just delete them and move on. But today I just want to pull on my ranty-pants, pull them up well past my belly button like some demented grandma and rant.

It does not cost three thousand dollars to publish a book!

If anyone tries to convince that you need to pay them 1500 dollars to self publish your book, that’s pretty high, but okay. If they try to convince you this is half price, they are scammers. Don’t pay these kinds of fees. It’s insane.

And it just gets worse. I’ve heard of people spending tens of thousands on “deluxe” publishing and promotions packages that do nothing other than take your money.

What does it really cost to self publish a book?

One of the beauties of self publishing is that a lot of the costs are up to you. There is a simple formula for most things in life:

Knowledge + Time + Money = Results

The great thing about this formula is that you need a certain amount of knowledge, time and money, but any of these things can be substituted for the others. Knowledge is power, if you are knowledgeable you can produce good results quickly for very little money. If you don’t have the knowledge but are willing to spend some time learning, you can do most of the steps of self publishing yourself and eventually get good results. If you have neither the knowledge or time, you can spend the money to pay a pro. It all comes down to choices.

Let’s break publishing down into five component parts and lay out the real costs for each. Publishing book requires editing the manuscript, formatting it, getting a cover, the actual publishing it and then promoting it.

Editing

You do need to edit your manuscript. In fact, you need a professional editor. A lot of writers resist this, put off by the cost or unwilling to admit they can’t do it themselves. The problem is that you can’t see your own mistakes. You need a second set of eyes, good professional eyes that know what they are looking for.

A professional editor requires money. There is no way around that, but the above formula still works for editing. Most editors offer at three different types of editing, content, line editing and proofreading. Which is right for you? If you have spent time learning your craft, if you understand story structure and are competent in basic grammar, you can get away with line editing or proofreading. If you have the time to let a manuscript sit and come back to it with new eyes, you can find more of your own mistakes. If you have taken the time to build a decent network of beta-readers, they will help you with content.

I still strongly recommend a good profession editor before you publish, no matter how many times you’ve been through the piece or how many beta-readers you use. A professional editor will almost always find things that could be improved.

How much does that cost? I hear quotes all over the place and it makes me think that all too many writers are being taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous editors. I’ve personally paid as much as a thousand dollars or more. Other writers tell me they are regularly quoted prices in the three to five thousand dollars range.

My editor, Janet Fix at the Wordverve offers several packages ranging from a half penny a word to a 1.25 cents per word, depending on the level of editing. A penny a word means that a sixty thousand word novel will cost in the neighborhood of 600 dollars. Expensive, but well shy of the thousands that some people are quoted.

Another important caveat, always ask about what the packages include. I used a professional editing service once, early in my career. Not only was it one of the most expensive edit jobs I’ve had, if I wanted to re-submit my changes or to work with the editor to finalize the document I would have had to pay for another edit, at the same price. Don’t fall for that. Find a good editor that is willing to do at least couple passes, until you both agree on the final manuscript.

Formatting

Formatting really isn’t that hard. This one area where I recommend knowledge and time replacing most or all the money investment. Formatting typically means making two versions of the manuscript, a print ready pdf for the printer and a file that can be converted to an ebook. Neither is particularly hard to do.

I have one huge bias when it comes to formatting, and while I admit it’s a bias it has worked so consistently for me that I use it as a rule. Don’t use Word. Whatever you think of Microsoft’s Word as a word processor or a writing program (it seems that most writers either love it or hate it), it’s not good for formatting.

If you are a Scrivener user, Scrivener does a great job on ebooks and a passable job for print. (Check out my tutorial on compiling in Scrivener here.) Free tools like Calibre can also be used to create ebooks. A workable print ready pdf can be created with open source software like OpenOffice or the way pros do, with InDesign. InDesign is more expensive and has a much steeper learning curve, but if you publish a lot or are planning a career, it might be worth learning. OpenOffice can make a decent looking book for the average indie author.

If you are technically challenged and the mere thought of learning to format a book makes you break out in hives, hire a professional formatter. My editor has one in her network. He runs a couple hundred dollars, which I find a bit high but he’s a professional graphic designer with years experience. Shopping around you can find formatters who will work for anywhere from fifty dollars to low hundreds, depending on what you want/need done. Again, I have had naive authors tell me they paid thousands for formatting and I shudder. Shop around, ask fellow authors for recommendations or check in with a local writer’s group about whether a quote sounds fair to them before you shell out thousands of dollars for anything.

Cover

A good cover is vital if you want your book to sell. It’s one of the areas where many writers are most willing to spend. There are two reasons for that, they acknowledge how important a good cover is and they know they don’t have the knowledge to do it themselves.

There are many reasons why it’s worth getting the knowledge, even if you continue to hire this task out. Knowing how to use a graphics program can save you a bunch of time and money on promotions. Having a basic understanding of design will help you know if a particular cover artist is worth the fee or not.

It does take time, though. There are two graphics program commonly used by the pros, Photoshop and GIMP. Neither are particularly user friendly and it takes hours of watching tutorials and trying things out to get a real sense of either program. Graphic design is an art form and you won’t develop an understanding overnight.

So this is one area where you are likely to going to spend money to have someone else create your cover. How much is that going to cost? Unfortunately, there are a number of factors and the legitimate cost of cover art can span twenty dollar premade covers to several hundred dollars. I’ve spent anywhere from seven hundred and fifty dollars for custom artwork to ten bucks for stock photos that I turned into a cover myself.

The biggest factor, in my opinion, is your genre. From a sales point of view, it’s more important that your cover show an understanding of the genre expectations than being an artistic masterpiece. Your target readers need to see your cover and know instantly that this is a book they might be interested in.

Erotica often features a scantily clad women on the cover. Erotic romance might have a hunky bare chested man. The “scary silhouette man” is so common on thrillers that it’s something of a cliche, but unlike writing cliches, cover cliches work.

What does this have to do with cost? Writers in certain genres can find stock photos and make their own covers pretty easily. The Best Boy Ever Made is YA with a large romance element. It has a simple stock photo cover and it one of my most consistent sellers. Other genres will require more work. Fantasy books often have illustrations, which is why I spent seven hundred and fifty dollars on commissioned art work for The Mage Chronicles.

This was one of my simplest covers, and yet it sells well month and month.
This was one of my simplest covers, and yet it sells well month and month.

Fantasy novels typically have illustrations. This is my most expensive cover, but I don't regret the cost one bit. It's gorgeous.
Fantasy novels typically have illustrations. This is my most expensive cover, but I don’t regret the cost one bit. It’s gorgeous.

Whether you are working with a designer that is using stock photos or directly with an artist, they should sell you the cover outright. I’ve talked to a few authors that were offered licensing deals instead. The result was that they had to go back to the artist and pay more money if they want to create merchandise based on the cover, or publish a new edition. Make sure you own the cover.

Publishing

Amazon and other ebook retailers have made publishing so easy it’s almost sad to see authors pay someone else to do it for them. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) allows you to upload your own ebook and see it on the kindle in a matter of hours. Createspace, Lulu.com and Ingram Spark make creating a print on demand book so easy that creating the print ready pdf is really the hardest step. There are many tutorial online to walk you through the process.

Even if you are not tech savvy, you really need to learn this step. Think about this, if you pay someone else to upload your book to Amazon for you, you will have to continue to rely on them to make changes and run promotions. You also have to trust them to report your sales truthfully and pay your royalties. Do you really want to put all those tasks into the hands of some company that sent you an email that one time? More than anything else, this is what makes me so angry about those spam emails.

The only potential cost for publishing is the ISBN and more than a few indie authors are on the fence about whether they matter. Some sources insist that if you let Amazon or Createspace give you a free ISBN, then they are the publisher of record and you won’t be able to get into bookstores. Other sources say that isn’t true.

The biggest argument people give in favor of buying your own ISBN is that then you are the publisher of record and you can take that book and ISBN anywhere. This is a myth. Say you buy an ISBN and publish your book to Createspace. Later you decide to switch to Lulu.com. You must unpublish the Createspace book and reissue your book as a new edition, which requires a new ISBN.

Then there is the whole question of whether or not ebooks even need an ISBN. Amazon allows you to publish without one. ISBN numbers are used to catalog books in libraries and collections and it’s uncertain whether or not there is any advantage to having one on your ebook, especially if you also have a print book which will have an ISBN by default.

Assuming you do want an ISBN, how much does that cost? ISBN’s are sold by Bowker. The more you buy, the cheaper. Currently its one hundred twenty five dollars for one ISBN or two hundred ninety five dollars for ten. A hundred go for around five hundred and some dollars. If you intend to publish and intend to use your own ISBN it really pays to save up and buy a package. It cuts your cost to less than thirty dollars each.

The bottom line is that paying someone hundreds or thousand of dollars to publish your book for you isn’t just a waste of money, it’s a dangerous business move. It puts the control of your book into someone else’s hands. It they are trustworthy, it’s a hassle. If they aren’t, you’re screwed.

Promotions

Promotions are the most difficult part of being an author. Or perhaps more to the point, it’s the vaguest part. What works and what doesn’t? How should you promote and what should you avoid? No one seems to have any solid answers.

Part of the problem is that it’s nearly impossible to make a definite correlation between our actions and the sales we see. If I ended this post with a link to my book, ten people read this post and one clicks through and buys the book, I could quantify my efforts. I’ve yet to see that sort of correlation pop up. You blog. You post on social media. You run promotions. Somewhere down the line you see sales. Whether those sales happened because of your effort or would have happened anyway is anyone’s guess.

It’s no wonder that so many writers would be happy to pay a promoter to take of that hassle for them, if only they could afford it. But they can’t. Promotional services are some of the most expensive packages offered by these snake oil salesman. For just a few thousand dollars they will make sure your book is plastered everywhere. They will put a team of Keebler Elves to work around the clock promoting and promoting.

I will say two things about these services. I have yet to talk to a single writer in person who paid out from some promotional service and was happy with the results. I’ve also noticed over and over that the glowing testimonials I see online have one common feature; they are authors who are new to the program and can’t wait to see the results. I’ve never read a testimonial that said, “I spend three thousand with Company A three years ago, and I’ve been a full time writer ever since, thanks to them.” Instead they trick writer who have just shelled out for the service to write them a testimonial, knowing that a few months down the road those writers will be disappointed and cynical.

 

So that’s my rundown of the real cost of self publishing. My most expensive book so far has clocked in just shy of what the above company is calling half price, and I paid for a professional photo shoot for that cover. My average, even with a professional editor onboard, is under a thousand.  

Spend time networking online with fellow writers before putting any money down for any service. Find out what a reasonable price is, what results you should expect and be sure you can’t do it yourself. I really hate to see any writer scammed out of thousands of dollars by some unscrupulous publishing company.

 

The one place I would never skimp on is knowledge itself. Luckily indie authors are a great bunch of people who are happy to share their knowledge. Here a few books to get you started:

 

The Indie Author Survival Guide

 

Write. Publish. Repeat.

 

Think Like a Publisher.

Your First 1,000 Copies

 

Let’s get Digital

 

Let Them Read Indies

The blogosphere is abuzz with news that ebooks sales are declining and print is surging again. Traditional publishing is safe from the ebook revolution and the self published hordes.

There are just two little problems with this. Traditional publishers seem to have forgotten their other recent victory. They’ve mostly won back the right to set the price they want from Amazon. So they have, increasing ebook prices to match print. Since both Amazon and bookstores still discount print, that means print books are now cheaper than ebooks in many cases. No wonder ebook sales are dropping and print is surging.

The other fact they fail to mention is that indie authors aren’t seeing the same effect, because most haven’t raised their prices. In fact the latest Author Earnings report shows that indies continue to gain ground in the marketplace.

So, I think it’s time.

Traditional publishing wants higher ebook prices?

Clears throat

Speaks in high, noble voice with French Accent

Lethemreadindies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Original Image Via Wiki-Commons

P.S. A shout out to all the small presses out there that aren’t jacking up their ebook prices to force readers back into an outdated pricing structure. This isn’t all about trad vs. indie.