Hello All!
As I stated in my last post, I’m doing a little experiment with this release. I’m releasing wide to other retailers first, before Amazon, then after a short period, putting the book into Kindle Unlimited (KU) for one 90 day term. This is what I feel to be the best compromise that will allow availability to the most readers. I may or may not continue this for future releases (gathering data to see if this can be refined at all).
The Release Plan
The book is currently live at Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iTunes), and Google Play ONLY.
It should be up for maybe another 24 hrs, but if you want to purchase it outside the Amazon ecosystem, you need to do it NOW, before it goes into KU.
(I’m sorry, Kobo folks, but due to the vagaries of how Kobo distributes titles to affiliated digital retailers, I cannot upload to Kobo and still retain the flexibility I need to make this plan work.
Rest assured, the title will be available at Kobo eventually… it’s just going to take 90 days.)
By this time tomorrow night, the book will be going into Kindle Unlimited, so if there are any KU only readers out there, just sit tight a little while longer and it will be available:)
Anyway, see below for the particulars and the purchase links. Hope you enjoy the book!
Purchase Links
Goodreads
Product Description
His sweet, submissive Lacey needed her strict, disciplinarian husband back. And she was about to get just that.
Being a submissive, well-spanked wife was pretty close to heaven on earth for Lacey Warren. The problem was, after the birth of her child, she was distinctly missing the “well-spanked” part. Perhaps she didn’t miss the pain of her punishments, the humiliation, and being bent to the iron will of her implacable, alpha male husband.
Or maybe that was exactly what she was missing.
Her problem was how to rekindle that red-hot, twisted, dark D/s undercurrent that used to run through every sexual encounter between she and her husband. Pushing him wasn’t an option; her husband would never do anything until he was good and ready. She’d resigned herself to a permanent change in their intimate lives… until the day he’d left her the letter.
The old Troy had returned. With a vengeance. And it looked like Lacey was about to live out the very painful — but deeply sexual — reality of “be careful what you wish for.”
It had been long enough. Holding himself back from taking his wife in hand once again had been the worst torture he’d ever been through. But with a new baby, he had no choice.
Now? Those days were over, and his Lacey was about to find out that the old Troy hadn’t disappeared. He’d only been waiting. Soon, he’d have her on her knees again, and back firmly under his thumb — and his hand. The days of his wife walking around with a pristine white bottom were coming to an end.
The only question for Troy was: how far was he prepared to take her in order to show her their old D/s dynamic was very much still alive. Did he trust himself not to lead her too far down the road of deep, utter submission he required of her? When it came to his gorgeous, curvy wife, he would accept nothing less than her complete surrender. To a hard, strict man like him, Lacey was more than his wife. She was his possession, in every way.
He intended to remind her of that in very sexual, painful, and even humiliating, ways. It was what she needed. It was what she craved. He would give her all of it, and more, in ways she could only dream about. Those dreams were about to become a dark, lurid, intensely passionate reality.
It was what they both needed.
There was more at play here than simply reminding his submissive wife that she was subject to her dominant husband in all things. His best friend Hunter’s marriage was slowly falling apart, and Troy suspected Lacey’s interest in helping Hunter might be more than… simple friendly support.
It shocked him though how much that suspicion — and what it might mean — didn’t bother him.
What’s more, since learning of the existence of the community of White Valley, a very unique town nestled high up in the Cascades of Washington state that embraced the deep D/s dynamic that Troy and Lacey lived, a possible solution had been percolating in Troy’s mind.
What would it mean to live in a place like White Valley? Could it both strengthen his own D/s marriage… and help mend a best friend’s broken heart?
Publisher’s Warning: This steamy contemporary D/s romance is intended for mature readers. 18 and over only!
This novel contains the following themes or activities: pervasive BDSM, intense and explicit sex, spanking and other corporal punishment, anal play, and other acts of (very) unequal power dynamics. If any of these might be offensive to you, please do not buy or read this book.
Word Count: 75,735 words
Until next time:)
Trent
Trent: I thoroughly enjoy the books already published in the “Valley of Surrender” (Spanked Wives Club) although the title is what first drew me in. Without endangering your relationship with Amazon, what is the over all nature of the
difficulties with on KU program? (I’ve have read different versions of the program 1-very difficult to exit the program and stop payments/ #2 all books downloaded through the KU program are immediately deleted when the program is stopped. Because of my confusion I have hesitated to join the “club.”
However, very anxious for Maintenance Week to be Amazon released. Great series ! Thank you for the entertainment.
Hello. These are good questions, and no, Amazon is not going to retaliate against me for giving my honest, unvarnished opinion on KU. Since they’re a 120 billion dollar company, to say my opinion doesn’t matter to them would be an understatement on a galactic scale:)
Right now the main difficulties with KU appear to be functions of a program that was designed in such a way as to make it ridiculously easy to game. As a result, the numbers of scam books in the service are astonishing, and getting larger by the day. That’s actually not the main problem though.
This past summer, it appears either algorithm change or a page read filtering system (or both) was instituted. It was a fiasco. Many writers reported page read declines of 50-90%; I saw a decline of over 30% overnight. While undoubtedly this new filter/algorithm was put in place to combat scammers, it hit huge numbers of legitimate writers who have never ever scammed anyone or anything (such as yours truly). It was enough of a revenue hit, and a near fatal blow to any sort of trust in what Amazon was doing, that I fled KU as a publisher immediately.
Very recently, as in the past month or so, Amazon has appeared to be making strides in “righting the ship.” Many indies began to report improvements in page reads, bringing them more in line with historical averages for those authors. AND, it appears anyway, that a concerted campaign appears to have been mounted to attack scammers targeting KU. Unfortunately, a few legit indies have been caught up in the “dragnet” here and there, but these have ultimately been resolved without lasting harm done. What this shows though is that Amazon has finally started to take seriously the myriad problems KU has been plagued with.
Though I would prefer not to use KU as a publisher (it still has several problems, and the subscription model in general is inherently unbalanced, most often to the suppliers’ detriment), but reality is reality. A HUGE cohort of readers rely on KU, and in fact LOVE the service. I do not begrudge those readers one bit either:) My problem is with the design of the program, not Amazon per se, and most especially not the readers who enjoy what KU does for them:)
I did a couple blog posts just after the end of the year that explain the problems KU was having in more detail, if you’d like to investigate further.
As a reader, I’d say it’s a pretty screaming good deal IF the authors you love are participating in it. For 10 bucks a month, it’s hard to beat for readers who are reading 10-20 books a month. The potential cost-savings for power readers is eye-opening to say the least:)
So, as for difficulty exiting the program that’s on the publisher side and it’s really not difficult; it’s only a 90 day term, so it’s not as if Amazon is asking for exclusivity in perpetuity.
Regarding the books downloaded through the KU program, you as a reader will retain them on your Kindle until your KU term has run out. I don’t believe you’ll be able to access downloaded books once your KU membership expires… but I’ve never actually tried to do that.
Bottom line: for a reader it’s extremely easy to use, and quite reasonably priced, if you’re a voracious reader. As a publisher, it still leaves a lot to be desired, but alas, we have to work with what we’ve got:)
Oh and Maintenance Week is now live on Amazon too, so you’re able to buy it or access it via Kindle Unlimited (if you decide to subscribe to that service).