Me too! Unfortunately I am trapped in a invisible box mime-style while Amazon and the IRS figure out how to talk to each other and I don’t know when they’re going to let me out.
Indebted is on it’s way! It’s fully completed and all ready to launch. But the day I uploaded the final (well… final_this_is_the_last_one.epub and I still maanged to upload the DRAFT cover where my cover artist typo’d my name) of Enchained and the placeholder for Indebted, I decided it was a good time to update my tax filing information. After all, it would involve just a 3-5 day hold (as per Amazon’s help files) and Enchained’s launch was 3 weeks out.
This was a very large mistake. I’ve been waiting on hold ever since.
February was my best month ever as an indie author and I was really proud of how things were going. I published the final book in my first series, Delta State. My bookkeper helped me with my 2025 taxes and we decided that for 2026 it would be better to set up as an LLC since I was hoping to buy a house in the next few years and it made sense to go ahead and do it now rather than have to disentangle things later. When you register an LLC and get an ID number for it from the IRS, it’s immediately sent to you. But what I didn’t realize (and my bookkeeper thought I knew so she didn’t warn me) is that the IRS’s verification system (which Amazon uses to make sure that people are using valid SSNs and EINs to have taxes withheld on their books) aren’t linked and there’s a lag in new EINs being able to be verified. In the past this update typically took under a week, but up to 8 weeks was possible. And while my account was frozen? I can’t touch anything – and the Amazon algorithm doesn’t touch my books. My KU page reads went from 12K to 3K. My sales went from almost 200 copies to under 20, powered mostly (as far as I can tell from my UTM links) by my Tiktok posting. I’m not a big account or an influencer, but I was at least getting some views. And then the algorithm change. And the wheels came off. Everything ground to a halt. I’m a new author – I still have a day job, but it was and is devastating to see the launch strategy I spent most of a year (starting in 2024) planning and preparing for grind to a complete standstill.
And we’re coming up on 8 weeks. The launch of Enthralled, Demons Book 3 was supposed to be taking place on 4/21, which is now 3 days away. 8 weeks will be 4/26/2026.
I’m checking every morning to see if the hold has gone away. The moment it does, I’ll hit the launch button on Indebted, and Enthralled will be released to follow ASAP.) Thanks for sticking it out with me. Ensnared (book 4 of demons) and Enthroned are both nearly completed and I’m VERY excited about them as well.
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