DL White [00:00:05]:

Welcome back to The Bookcast, my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 43. I'm Dale White, author of eleven contemporary, southern, and romantic fiction novels featuring black men and women. I'm also a big fan of books, so we usually begin with a book report, and then we talk about write. I'm currently working on a Black Diamond novella, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. If you're new here, or a seasoned listener, a bibliophile, or just looking for a good read, I hope you'll enjoy today's show. I am happy to have your ears for this time, and I'm excited to share my love of reading and writing books with you. If you want to show your support for this podcast or me as an author, I welcome you to do so.

DL White [00:00:53]:

I would be most appreciative. Please visit my support site@buymeyaccoffee.com, booksbydlwhite. I'll have a link in the show notes. You can offer a one time or recurring gift to support the show. The other way you can support is to buy the books. Men buy the books. It's Booksbydlwhite.com books that has all the good stuff. All my titles are available in ebook.

DL White [00:01:16]:

Select titles are available in print and audio. Wherever ebooks are sold, you can borrow them by via Scribb, which is a script, or Kobo Plus, which are subscription. Subscriptions? Yes. You subscribe, you borrow books, you return them back in or your local library. You can request my books if you can't find them in circulation. They are all available to overdrive to purchase for their collection of fantastic novels. And I super love it when readers send me a screenshot of their libraries stocking my books. One of my ardent readers, Karen the Reader, always sends me a screenshot when she requests my book at a library where she's a member and they add it to circulation, send them on.

DL White [00:02:02]:

You can find me at Twitter or Instagram at author dlwhite. I look forward to hearing from you. You can also buy my books directly from me at Books it's payhip.com Booksbydy. You can also get there from the Booksbydy.com Books link. It'll first, take you to Payhip, where you can buy them direct. Or there's also a Link, where you can buy them at your favorite retail store. You can also buy them in print at Resist Booksellers. If you order a print title from me, I'll throw in a little bit of free swag whatever I have stashed away for my good friends of the book.

DL White [00:02:38]:

Today I have a few things I want to chat about. We'll start with the book report, as always. Then we'll talk about how far I made it on my novella in progress. Spoiler alert not very far, but I am making progress. Then I want to weigh in on Amazon raising prices on their subscription, Reader Service and dun dun dun how I am helping the robots take over. I mean, not really, but let's talk. AI. Today is Saturday, May 20.

DL White [00:03:09]:

It is nine eight a. M. It's a gray day in the A. It's something that the atmosphere. I woke up with a headache, which I mean, I haven't even been awake long enough or anything to get on my nerves, so must be something in the atmosphere. But I have a mic. I have books. I'm ready to dig in.

DL White [00:03:29]:

But first, coffee. Begin, as always, with the book report. Because I am a book nerd, book head, book lover, book person. I didn't put this on the rundown, but yesterday, someone actually cracked me up by talking about how we are so into over consumption that we think reading 200 books a year is better than just reading three to five good books. And I just laugh because, okay, I don't know a book head. I don't know a book lover that's only reading three to five books a year. To me, that's a casual reader. Unless you're reading, like, 800 page books.

DL White [00:04:27]:

Unless you're reading heavy, heavy nonfiction. Unless you're reading, like, a presidential historical novel, those books, them are 800 pages. Like, The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1200 page book. If you're reading three of those a year, good on you. I love you to pieces. For you, three to five books is not going to get me through the week, let alone the year. So, like, if three to five books a year is your jam, dig into that. Go read those books.

DL White [00:05:02]:

But I don't understand the obsession people have with having to note at every turn people who read a lot. I don't do anything else but read and write. I barely watch TV. I don't watch news. I don't go out. I don't have children. I don't have a spouse. I don't even have plants.

DL White [00:05:23]:

You all like, I buy flowers and then I look at them until they die, and then I throw them out. I read. That's what I do. I read. So this is, like, what I do. This is fun to me. This is, like, my passion. Reading is my passion.

DL White [00:05:43]:

I read a lot. I am at Book 66 for the year. There are a lot of books out that I want to read. I guess I just like I don't I don't have the time to pick on people who only read three books a year. Three, but three. Five books a year. If you read twelve books a year, awesome. If you don't read at all, awesome.

DL White [00:06:02]:

Because I'm sure you experience and express your love and joy for art in artistic endeavors. Another way. I have a friend that watches movies. Like I read books. She will go to the theater every day if you let her. Three to five movies a week is what she's watching. That's her appreciation of art. There are some people that listen to three to five records a week.

DL White [00:06:26]:

Albums, records, albums. I'm old. Three to five albums a week. There are people that love drawings and paintings and will flip through art books and love an art museum. They might visit three to five art museums a week. If you're out here saying, I'm sorry, if you're visiting more than five museums a year, you are just not really appreciating the art and really sitting in it and talking about how the art affects you. I'm reading romance and crime fiction. It's not like I'm even reading like Tony Morrison out here.

DL White [00:07:08]:

Somebody please tell me how I'm supposed to sit with A Cold Trail by Robert Dugoni for a month, because I read it and I just needed to think so much about it. Come on, if you don't have time to read 100 books a year, you don't have time to read 100 books a year. And that's fine. But this time that you spend digging on people who read more than you could be spent reading, you could maybe read, like six books a year. Anyway, I'm going to stop being petty. No, I'm not. But I read one, two, three. I read five books this week, and by read I'm using air quotes because most of them were audio.

DL White [00:07:45]:

So it's reading. In my house, we call that reading. I read five books. I know you all will be happy to discover that I have caught up on the Tracy Crosswhite series finally. I am at book ten, which comes out in October. So I just was like, let's just listen to them all. Let's get it done and over with, because you're not going to be able to rest until you have caught up on the Tracy Crosswhite series. So I'm caught up.

DL White [00:08:18]:

I read books seven, eight and a half and nine this week via audio. Book ten comes out in October. I, of course, have an advanced reader copy, but I think I might wait for the audio. I don't know. It comes out in October, so it's way too early to read it. I'm not aching for it, so I'm going to let it sit for a minute. I also read so book seven was A Cold Trail, tracy Cross White, book seven, Tracy Cross White, book eight was in her tracks. Eight and a half was the last line that I didn't really enjoy because it was kind of a different point of view.

DL White [00:08:58]:

It wasn't Tracy's POV, and it was like a story that was already told in book eight. It was a short. It was an hour and a half. I wasn't really fond of the narrator. The story was like a retelling. I would like to never hear from this character ever again. Love you so much, Robert. And then I read book nine, which was what she found.

DL White [00:09:21]:

These are all by Robert Dugoni, and I recently was just following him on Twitter and he said that people are worried that the Cross White series is over and it's not book Ten comes out in October. So yay. And he'll keep it going as long as he can. I'm very happy about this news. This week I am reading the remnants left behind. This is againton hill's standalone Romance by Aubrey Pin she is an author that I kind of I just like reach into her like 77 book long backlog and just pick something because her writing is always good. She's good stuff. And this one, she was promoting this one this week, so I picked it up just a few chapters in.

DL White [00:10:03]:

But it's good so far. And then I have to finish always and Forever by Beverly Jenkins. This book is good, but like, new books are very shiny and I was distracted by trying to finish the Tracy Crosswhite series. The other book that I read last week was Just Me and you, which is a novella by a new author named October Brown. And this is her first foray. So I want to say first, welcome to the world of being an indie author. It is so much fun. It will get on your damn nerve, but so much fun.

DL White [00:10:37]:

Congratulations on your first release. It's very exciting. I did see that she is working on a full length. So girl, you go for it. And please reach out to your fellow authors, your fellow indie authors for support, for guidance, for somebody to lean on, somebody to yell at. I do want to encourage you to gather yourself a good community of writers because when the stuff starts to hit the fan, you need somebody to complain to. And we should not be realistically, should not be doing that on social media in front of the readers. Keep that in house, keep it in the group chat, as we say.

DL White [00:11:19]:

So on the Author Resources Update subscription for Authors continues to knock it out of the park with great offerings for authors looking to jumpstart a subscription and pretty much just like offering good advice to authors. It's a super cool group that they have. If you do Facebook, they have a great Facebook group. They also have a YouTube channel, which I have been subscribed to for some time. This week they had an interview with a person that I love and adore like I would like to worship at the church of Becca Sime. I absolutely love her. Whenever she's on anything, I always tune in, even if it's a repeat. I pick up some absolute nuggets of gold.

DL White [00:12:03]:

In an earlier podcast, I talked about my Clifton strengths and I'm learning about how those have really shaped how I approach not just my life, but my writing. Gone are the days where I would beat myself up for not writing like such and such author and not doing things like that. And so author, that is their process. That is their author career. That is their author business. And this is mine. This is what I am leaning into. This is what I am doing.

DL White [00:12:30]:

So anyway, this week on these subscriptions for Authors YouTube channel, becca had bars, bars, bars, bars. She talked about how the gold rush of publishing those days when authors are really making bank on ebook sales through Amazon, how those days are pretty much gone. Now we are in the golden age of publishing and talking about what that means. So it's basically audiences are looking for fewer, better books. Instead of feeding for a book a month from your favorite author. Authors aren't under the pressure anymore of shooting out a book every month, every six weeks, to keep the attention of readers that are just gobbling them up. I think romance and fantasy readers are voracious. If you put it out there, they will snatch it right up.

DL White [00:13:21]:

And so, really, as long as you are consistent, which I am terrible at, of putting out material and taking care of and feeding your audience good stuff, they'll stick around for you. But there are also a lot of authors out there. There's like 100, and some books drop every single week, and there's a lot to pay attention to. And so if you're not out there, you do feel like your readers will forget you. And I do feel a lot of that. Becca is a quality follow if you are into that kind of stuff. More of like, the psychology of writing and the psychology of book publishing and being an author and running your business. Look up the QuickCast on YouTube, and I think those are coming to audio podcast.

DL White [00:14:05]:

At some point this year. I did see an announcement that they are coming to an audio podcast. I should also note the series of books that Becca and her team have written that go with the QuickCast are so valuable. Writer, you need to quit. And writer. Are you in? Burnout? Were eye openers for me. There were a lot of things I needed to stop doing in order to move forward, and I was most certainly in Burnout. When I read that book.

DL White [00:14:30]:

It really opened my eyes to be like, yes, you are, and now you need to dig your way out of it. What's the HAPS on Elysium? I know you guys want to know, so it's coming along. I'm inching along, like, the first three to four chapters of a book. I know I've said this before. They're the foundation for me. They have to be set because that's my jump off point. And so I'm really working to get them right. I've got to set the scene right.

DL White [00:15:01]:

I think I have Athena pretty well figured out. There's a couple of things I want to go back and add to chapter one, because then it relates to chapter two, how Athena and Vance interact with each other at this pivotal point in their relationship, where Vance is trying to convince Athena to meet him on Black Diamond. I made some good progress this week. I actually wrote new words. I'm very happy about it. I wrote new words and I have a plan to write this afternoon, evening, and tomorrow. Plus, I took some days off for the Memorial Day holiday so I can dig in, get into a good spot to jump into 20K in five days, which is a quarterly challenge that's put on by the writing community that I'm a part of called Word Makers. I'm not a group write person, so I doubt I'll be in the Zoom sessions.

DL White [00:15:53]:

Everybody gets together to write together, and then we all talk about what we wrote. I don't like it. It doesn't do much for me. It's hard for me. I'm hardly ever into Zoom sessions, but I do like to be in the debrief on the website later, talk about what we're struggling with, how far we got, what are we writing, and kind of throw ideas back and forth with other authors. I do love that part. I will be writing so preemptively. Cross your fingers and wish me good luck there.

DL White [00:16:27]:

So, yes, let's dig into a couple of topics. Number one, we recently heard that Kindle Unlimited has raised prices as of July for their subscription program. So I always feel like I have to explain what Kindle unlimited is. Because there's a big difference between Kindle Digital Publishing and Kindle Unlimited. Every book that is for sale on Amazon in ebook in Kindle form, is through Kindle Digital Publishing. Even if they're in Kindle Unlimited, or if they're not in Kindle Unlimited, we're all on KDP. Kindle Unlimited is a subscription ebook reading service. It's like it works like a library.

DL White [00:17:16]:

Authors opt in, the individual books opt in to Kindle Unlimited. Those books are in for a minimum of three months. However, if you're nice and ask them, they will remove your books early. You just have to email them to Asin and tell them you want to pull your book out from Kindle Unlimited. They usually do it. If they say no, just keep asking. Somebody will do it. Kindle Unlimited is an optional service that authors opt into.

DL White [00:17:47]:

Individual books are opted into this subscription service. That ebook cannot be available anywhere else online. It cannot be on your website. It cannot be available on book funnel. It cannot be available in your patreon, your ream website, your buy me a coffee site. It can't be available anywhere else, not even for free. Authors get paid per page. So we also learned in May that they lowered the per page rate that they're going to pay authors to 00:40 page.

DL White [00:18:24]:

It's mighty low. It's mighty low. And I know people have been saying this is the lowest rate ever. It's not. It's been zero 00:38 before, I think like a few years ago, it hit .0 00:38. So it was though, a reduction from the March and April rate. So here's the thing. Authors have to decide at what point it's not worth being in kindle Unlimited anymore.

DL White [00:18:47]:

There are some authors making bank on Kindle Unlimited. They have that many readers and that many books in the program, and the books are that long. That zero point page times a whole bunch of readers times a whole bunch of books. Times long books equals bank. For those authors, it's not worth leaving yet because that's their bread and butter. They can't sell that ebook anywhere else except for Amazon. Now they can sell the paperback and they can sell the audio anywhere they please. The deal is kindle unlimited.

DL White [00:19:22]:

It's just for ebooks, and they can only be available at Amazon. And for authors that are making five, six figures from page reads on Amazon, it's not worth them leaving yet. All right? I had an issue where I lost my Internet, and so hopefully I'm picking up where I left off. So for the authors that are making bank on Amazon, it's not worth them leaving yet because they're making good money that they are probably not going to make anywhere else. Because the amount of effort it takes to get that kind of readership on websites that are not Amazon, it's a lot of work. Amazon really does a lot of work for authors because the algorithm brings books to readers, and no other bookseller has an algorithm that works that way. You have to actually do that work on Apple books on Google, play on Barnes and Noble anywhere else. So for the authors that are making a good salary that could pay their mortgage with their earnings from Kindle Unlimited, it's not worth leaving.

DL White [00:20:32]:

And the issue is that those authors are powerful and they have influence. And so for the authors that are making like $39 a month, full transparency, I might make $100 a month on Amazon Kindle. I'm really at the point where I'm just covering my bills for book sales because I don't release a lot. It was before I released Hay lover. It had been two years since I released a book. So I do make sales here and there, and I'm also not really promoting. I don't run ads or anything like that. And I'm really focused on trying to write and really trying to get books out the door so I could have more to promote.

DL White [00:21:18]:

I'm sure you all are tired of hearing about the first eleven books that I put out. I'm one of those authors that's making between 50 and 150 a month. I am also not in Kindle Unlimited, so that probably has a whole lot to do with how little I make. But one of the reasons I pulled my books out of Kindle Unlimited was because that's what I was making when I was in Kindle Unlimited, and I couldn't sell that book anywhere else to boost those sales. I wasn't getting page reads. I couldn't pay people to read my books. So for those authors that aren't making bank, they're influenced by the authors that aren't leaving. So it has to be something like it would have to be something big for authors who are making a lot of money to leave Kindle Unlimited.

DL White [00:22:09]:

And it would have to be something to make the readers follow them. Like, I have seen some authors, like they will sell it first on their website until basically they make back what it costs to produce that book. Because a lot of people are buying really good covers and editing is a pretty penny. So once they make back what they spent to publish that book, then they put it up on Amazon and then that's all profit because Amazon is going to take 70% 30% to 70% of what you make on that book. So that's why we start selling Direct first, because we make more of the profit. And then once they make the cost of production back, then they throw it up on Amazon, put it in Kindle Unlimited for three months, then pull it out of Kindle Unlimited and sell it everywhere else. And from that point forward, it's all profit for that author. I'm talking in circles, I know, but it has to begin with authors deciding how much they're going to take from Amazon.

DL White [00:23:13]:

And if authors who are making a lot of money are going to just keep taking it, it's going to be hard for authors to really have a leg to stand on for the smaller mid list or the low sales authors like me to be able to move off of that platform and have success. It will take a lot of work. I moved off of the platform in maybe 2018, 2019, and I still primarily make my money on Amazon. My royalties are like not even 80 20, like 90, 1090 percent of my paycheck is Amazon, and then the other is whatever I make everywhere else, including libraries and direct sales. So all that put together, I'm still making most of my money off of Amazon, even without being in Kindle Unlimited. I see a lot of readers kind of up in arms about it. But the test is going to be if they are raising Kindle Unlimited, it went from 999 to 1199 I believe, to match the price of Kobo Plus, which is another subscription service that doesn't limit authors in where else they can publish. So my books are also available in Kobo Plus.

DL White [00:24:33]:

If you are a Kobo Plus subscriber, you can read ebook and you can listen to audiobooks with your subscription. Audiobooks are not included in a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Not really for indie publishing, but for authors that are on Amazon's imprint, they often will include the ebook and the audio. So that's why I keep it. I am certainly reading more than 1199 worth a month through Kindle Unlimited. So the cost hike is not a surprise to me. It's not out of my reach. I certainly save money by subscribing because the way that I read and listen to books the way I inhale books.

DL White [00:25:19]:

It's a cost saver for me. There are a lot of authors on Kindle Unlimited and the authors that I read and listen to that are on Amazon's imprint where their audiobooks are bundled with the ebooks makes it worth the money to me. So that's for me, I believe they raised the price to 1199 to be able to compete with Cobalt Plus subscription. It's 1199 for ebook and audio. The issue is that even like for indie authors, they got to start bundling audiobook with ebook. And I guess they can't really do that unless the books are available exclusively on Audible, which a lot of authors aren't really doing anymore. I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking out loud about why and what sense does it make? Because it's 1199 for you can borrow 20 ebooks at a time, but on Kobo plus, I don't think there's a limit. And you get ebook and audio, but there's also not very not very many authors that I read over there quite yet.

DL White [00:26:29]:

So the test will be if they raise the per page pay rate, because if they leave it the same, or they lower it and they don't add anything to readers, well, now it's just a money grab. Now it's the same thing you always got for more money, and they're not paying authors anymore. So we'll have to see. We have to see. We'll know by the end of June, or maybe mid June what the July per page pay rate is going to be. And then I think authors really have to have a come to Jesus meeting and decide, what is it going to take to be able to leave an unlimited behind? Because at that point it won't be worth it. Readers don't get any more for their money. We have been able to borrow 20 books at a time for over a year.

DL White [00:27:22]:

I think audiobooks are not included, but it costs more. Those are my rambling thoughts on the Kindle Unlimited subscription price hike. We'll see what happens. We really still are in kind of a waiting period. The price doesn't go up until July. We'll have to wait until June 15 to see what the July pay rate is going to be. The other thing is AI artificial intelligence, the Chat GPT, the Chat, the pseudo write all the programs that are out, that are basically tools to help authors write. I'm seeing a whole lot of snide, snarky comments about how you're not a real writer if you're using AI to help you write.

DL White [00:28:11]:

And I personally, my thoughts only, I feel like you all should go write a book. I guess I get that people are alarmed and they really feel like AI is going to take over and it's going to start writing books. And I don't disagree. I think it's a valid fear. I am not a person that I'm using air quotes here, gets scared of stuff. I'm just going to be out here writing these books. There are people that like my writing and like my voice and I don't think that Chat GPT is going to be able to duplicate my books. I am not a person that is fearful of the algorithm scraping my blog or scraping my books.

DL White [00:29:04]:

What we can do is keep writing the books. Because, seriously, have you all used it? Because I use it for planning. I use it for detail gathering. But if you ask Chat GPT to write you a chapter of a novel, it is going to be the blandest, dumbest, most unusable piece of crap you've ever seen. By the time you feed it a prompt that gives you something that's barely usable, you could have already wrote the chapter. It is not a time saver. It does not make writing any easier, though. I do understand that people are upset and they feel like AI is going to take over and it's going to start writing books and people are already using it to write terrible books and put them up on sale on Amazon.

DL White [00:29:58]:

So if you are worried about competing with terrible books, that's just not a thing I'm worried about. I am not worried about competing with terrible books. My books are better than a machine written book. So I am just going to be out here writing books. I am going to still be out here using artificial intelligence to help me plan my novels, to help me plan details, to help give me ideas so that my fingers can do the walking on this keyboard. I did see some people are upset about pseudo, right? They do have a new function called story something. I guess you put in some words and ask it to write and it produces words. I've used it.

DL White [00:30:47]:

I mean, I still got to take that and change it. I still got to make it me. I still got to put Magic and Spice and Seasoning in it. It would be like asking like Google to write you a book. It's terrible. It's terrible. You'd still have to rewrite the thing. So I get it.

DL White [00:31:09]:

I'm being facetious because I'm not a person that's easily scared about things and I'm absolutely picking on people who are moaning and gnashing their teeth about it. I fully get it. I fully understand it. I just feel like I'm still going to write the books. The stories are still going to plant themselves in my head. People are still going to look for books by D. L. White and I wrote eleven books the long, hard, challenging way.

DL White [00:31:41]:

So if I can write book number twelve with some fun and ask it to give me ideas and ask it to give me a jump start, something to go off of, I'm going to do that. So don't buy Elysium if you're not interested in authors who use AI to help them write books. I'm just telling. You now, don't buy this book. I'm going to be okay with it. But I promise you, you will not be able to tell that I used AI to write this book because anything that I ask it to write is terrible. So I'm like, Eh. And then I go and I write whatever I asked it to write because it's not me.

DL White [00:32:20]:

It's not my voice. I promise you. It's so plain and generic and beige and vanilla. It's not anything I would sell for now. The robots are not quite taking over, but the robots will help you plan your novel. Sort of even still, even the outline. I'm just asking it generic questions like give me goal, motivation, conflict for a novel about this featuring these characteristics. I am not telling it to write my novella.

DL White [00:32:58]:

So even if it gives me a bland outline, it gives me something to hate, it gives me something to change, and it gives me ideas. Okay, I don't like that. Let's change this to that. Let's add details here. It gives me a jump off point, and I need help. Y'all ain't coming over here to sit at this desk and stare at these NSYNC bobbleheads and write these novels. I need help. I'm using it to help.

DL White [00:33:23]:

So those are my thoughts on it. Those are my very caddy petty, yes, I'm picking on you thoughts about it because I'm not a person that's easily alarmed by these kinds of things. But I'm definitely keeping my eye on it, definitely not trying to use it in any unethical way, form or fashion. But I am happy to have something that gives me a little jump because sometimes I'm just not all that creative. And after I'm writing book twelve and the ideas are not plentiful anymore, I could sit here and look at a blank piece of paper or a blank page and think about what my characters could do for three days on an island. Or I could get three pages of ideas from Chat GPT. I'll take it. I will take three pages of ideas because now I can pick and choose and I can make changes and I can take that and turn it into something I can use and I would publish and I would be proud to put my name on.

DL White [00:34:23]:

And I think if authors don't want to use that, that is cool. That's absolutely awesome. But I think if you could use something that can help you, you should lean into it because it is not going anywhere. And I think there are authors that are going to use it to level up. And I am a person that doesn't want to be left behind. Like I have already been left behind. In some ways. I don't want to be left behind.

DL White [00:34:49]:

If there's something out there that I can use that will help me, that will make this a little bit easier, that will give me a leg up, I'll take it. I am in. That brings us to the end of today's episode, y'all. Pray I can slice these two segments together because I did lose power right in the middle, so we'll see. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the bookcast. I will be back next week with a reading update and I hope a writing update because I'll be in the middle of like, four days off, so that'll be awesome. Please don't forget. Please forget.

DL White [00:35:26]:

Please don't forget. You can hit my support site@buymaycoffee.com booksbydlwhite. You can also buy my Books@booksbydlwhite.com books. They are delightful chunks of joy in written or audio format. I really enjoy bringing them to you. Please enjoy this weekend. Have a superlative week. We'll chat again next weekend.

DL White [00:35:52]:

Bye.