Is this thing on?

Hi!  Welcome to my first blog entry of 2018... I know, I'm seriously behind. But this is the Year of the Earth Dog, which means that it's my year, and I've been planning some things that are going to knock your socks off! 

The first big thing is one I hope you've already noticed: my site's gotten a lovely new makeover in Aviario's signature colors (Go, Eagles!), and things are generally a lot more streamlined.  The About Aviario page is front-and-center in my navigation, now, because I'm going to start rolling out some fun information and pictures about the characters and their favorite places to hang out.  My goal is for your Aviario experience to be as immersive as possible, before you've even picked up a book: if the novels are the trip, consider my website the brochure.  

The second piece of great news that I have for you?  I'm opening up Between The Lines for indie author book reviews again!  If you're interested in getting a review from me, please hop on over to fill out this form.  It's only a few questions long, and extremely user-friendly.

I've also started sharing excerpts and art over on my Pinterest boards ... if you're a fan of Pinterest like I am, please head on over and follow me there!  I also curate boards for Druidry, Bullet Journaling, and Arts & Crafts ... let's share ideas with each other!

Until next week,

It took me a few days to get around to looking DartFrog up.  Something about the interaction gave me a strange vibe, and I was right, but I'll come back to that.  Here's their mission statement: "Every year there are an estimated 450,000 self-published titles released into an overcrowded literary marketplace. Unfortunately, most of those books will live forever in total obscurity. But, there are within that mass of self-published books, some real gems. DartFrog finds those gems and distributes them to our partner bookstores."

O-kay.  So, sounds good, but how does it work?  I clicked on every link that looked as though it'd give me a straight answer. "About Us"?  Mission Statement and glamour shots of the staff.  "Why Dartfrog"?  Buzzwords and all the stuff that sounds too good to be true, no numbers or details.  "Our Standards"?  Some stuff about quality control that's just a little bit condescending, if you ask yours truly... and it had typos.  (I laughed.  A lot.)   

Oh, wait.  "Author Agreement".   Finally, I thought, something that  should lay it out in black and white.  Click: "The author agreement is a straight forward document that seeks to remove all the legalese that most of us don't read or understand anyway! But there are a few highlights that you should know."  Not only is that on the edge of condescension ... but the full, actual text of that agreement isn't anywhere I could find on the website.  Presumably, you only get it after you've started the sign-up process.

So I made a mock order for In The Cards.   It asks some straight-forward questions about your book: did you edit/format it yourself, how long is it, what's the ISBN/genre, etc.  But it doesn't even tell you what your order form is doing.  Or how much it'll cost.   I hit "proceed to payment" and was hit with the sticker shock: $350.   

Let me reiterate: I still don't know what, exactly, I'm paying for, here.

I clicked back out of the cart - or, in the vernacular, "noped out like nobody's business" - and tried to dig a little deeper to see what that price tag entailed.  The closest thing I could find to ANY detail about what my money would buy was on "Why DartFrog":

DartFrog evaluates your book to ensure that it meets a standard-of-excellence bookstores require. Those books that do, we make available for distribution to our network of partner bookstores. If your book is not ready for distribution, we will tell you what needs to be fixed and allow you to re-submit when the changes have been made. We do not charge an additional fee for a second evaluation.

Oh.  So I'd be paying DartFrog $350 to pat me on the head and tell me my book is good, and then add it to a catalog they give to a (so far) very small list of indie stores.  How is that any different than an agent or a publisher?  I don't really think it is.  Sure, that 70/30 split afterwards is pretty nice, but I'd have to spend an initially HUGE chunk of money that I don't have.  There's very little about their evaluation team, so I don't even know if the people I'm paying to vet my book would be fair or unbiased.  

Given that I had to do a half hour's worth of web surfing to find all this, I'm pretty unimpressed.  If you're a web-based service, you're catering intrinsically to people who are used to very fast service: go to the site, find what you need, get it, get out, move on with your day.  I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but self-published authors' time is precious enough without having to constantly verify and vet their potential allies and business collaborators.   I could have spent that half hour connecting with my peers, making marketing graphics, preparing for my new collaboration release, or - oh, hey! actually writing more.    Instead, I'm here.   Because I get the increasing feeling that I need to share these experiences with you all, to save you the time and make your life as fellow authors a little easier.  

We're all in this together.  I've never felt that it's about the money - but saving it where and when we can is crucial.  Being transparent and communicating about what works, what's fair, and what things really are is even more important.  

In the end, I passed on BookFrog because I just can't spare that kind of money for a random person's validation.  If you can, I don't judge: in fact, I'd love to know what you think.  If you've had experiences with BookFrog, yourself, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email.  I want to be proven wrong: I want to believe that there really are people out there who genuinely want to help find the good indie books, give them the love they deserve, and build a mutual relationship ... not just take our money and laugh all the way to the bank.

Until next time, dream on, write on, and stay amazing!