Years ago, when I first went Indie, I personally formatted and published My Cheeky Angel on Smashwords also. Vicious headaches, suicidal thoughts and a near divorce later, getting my book through that blasted meatgrinder and equal to their Style Guide so it would get in the premium catalogue, had put me through a meatgrinder—oh yeah! After those 2am nights redoing the upload over and over, I decided that I would rather lick clean every window of a twenty story building rather than go through that again. Funny enough, because I’m stubborn, I was eventually successful and the book was made available. In the next few months it earned such a pittance that when I finished the next in the series, His Devious Angel, I quickly changed my path. Publishing exclusively with Amazon became my goal.

I’m beginning to see that the free books aren’t such a draw anymore. Let’s face it, the market is becoming saturated. Once an author has a following, I feel that not every new book released needs to be made available as a freebie. I’m sure the readers who know they’ll get their money’s worth are more than willing to spend the few dollars we charge nowadays to be able to read what they know is worth the price.