For those that haven’t heard, there’s a new trend going around on TikTok where Booktokers and readers are educating each other on how to read our books for free. 

How?

Abuse Amazon’s relaxed return policy and return a book that’s fully been read within the 7 day window, whether they’ve enjoyed the book or not.

Many of these readers have convinced themselves this is okay because Amazon allows it, and what’s the big deal anyway? The author can afford to lose that profit. It’s our problem, not theirs.

Sadly, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Amazon charges a delivery fee for each ebook delivered, and whether that book is returned or not, they keep that fee. Reading an entire book and then asking for your money back just because you can is as bad as downloading a free ebook from a piracy site.

Each book takes between $1000-$5000 to produce, and 98-99% of authors are considered lucky if they bring in $100 in royalties every month. 

Many authors write because they love the stories, not because they are actually making money doing so. And, of course, many do it with the dream of some day making it big and doing it full time. 

For many authors, losing that book profit, plus the delivery fee Amazon keeps, equals a negative total in royalties every month. This trend has caused most authors who saw between 1-3 returns a month, at most, to now see anywhere between 40-100 returns. 

Amazon doesn’t allow movie returns past 48 hours, or returns for movies that have been fully watched. Thanks to the Kindle Unlimited platform, they have the means to see whether a book has been fully read or not. Which means they have the power to stop this abuse once and for all.

It’s one thing to allow readers to return fully read books, but to also keep the delivery fees of that book? 

It’s putting us in an unsustainable corner.

If you could find it in your heart, please sign the Change.org petition asking Amazon to change their ebook return policy to better protect authors from this TikTok trend. It’s already gotten almost 15,000 signatures from readers like you that understand why abusing this system is unfair, and every single new signature counts.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post and help us out with the petition!

https://chng.it/grqsQC9pZY

Today I’m participating in the Never Have I Ever Book Tag. I was tagged by @acoupleofbeesread I just had to try it out. What can I say? I’m a sucker for tags that remind me of games.

The Rules:
* Link back to original creator: Madame Writer.
* Link back to the person who tagged you or the blog where you first saw this tag.
* Answer all prompts.
* Add one more prompt of your own.
* Tag at least 5 people.
* Don’t lie.
* Have fun!

Never Have I Ever…read a later book in a series before reading the first book.

Actually, I have done this. On more than one occasion, above is a recent example. I read The Savage One first. I do go back and read the first books after on a lot of occasion though.

Never Have I Ever…burned a book.

NEVER, nor would I ever! That is blasphemy!!

Never Have I Ever…read a book I knew I would hate.

I have a bachelor’s degree in English. Of course I’ve read books I just knew I would hate, but in some cases I was wrong. The Yellow Wallpaper, was better than I thought it would be.

Never Have I Ever…wrote a fanfiction about my favorite books.

Nope, I never have.

Never Have I Ever…loved a book when I was young and hated it when I got older.

None that I can think of. Of course, I am in my mid 50s so there have been a lot of books I’ve read, but I cannot think of any that I would hate now.

Never Have I Ever…hated a book by an author I love.

I wouldn’t say I’ve hated any, but there have been some that I have not been as crazy about for an author that I love.

Never Have I Ever…gone into a bookstore to buy one book and come out with many more.

Um, buying one book would be crazy!

Never Have I Ever…read the end of a book before reading the beginning.

I’ve never read the end of a book before the beginning, but I do skim ahead on a page when reading and then go back and read the whole page.

Never Have I Ever…skim read nearly half a book.

I may have done this a time or two for my English classes, or my English Seminar class.

Never Have I Ever…spoiled a book for someone.

Never intentionally. I wrote a review once and added spoilers by mistake. Never again!

Never Have I Ever…written a review for a book I could not finish.

Never. If I cannot finish a book I will notify the author or other person that sent it for review to tell them I could not finish it and will not be reviewing it. I am actually in that position currently. I have two books that I could not finish and thought I go back to them, but I’m just not feeling them at all.

My Question:

Never Have I Ever…not been interested in reading.

I’ve always loved reading and enjoy the places I can go when I get buried in a book. I decided to turn my love for reading into a blog in 2017 to fill my spare time at night after finishing my Bachelors Degree. I love the places I can go and escape while in a good book.

My Tags:

@Red-HairedAshReads

@ebsandherreads

@ailishsinclair

@bobosbookbank

@jbiggar2013

And anyone who is reading this and wants to participate. Please tag me so I can see your answers.

It’s been 3 years since I started Sassy Redhead Book Reviews and in that time I have read so many books. In the years since I started on June 12, 2017, I have written 1, 274 posts, had 11, 989 views, 7,569 visitors, and have 299 followers. I have been contacted by various authors to read and review their books, and have enjoyed doing so. I have discovered many new to me authors and still enjoy reading, reviewing and promoting authors. In 2020 alone I have already done 335 posts.

I would like to thank all that have visited, commented and shared my posts in the three years my blog has been up and running, and I would like to thank two very important people that helped me get started with my blog and by reviews, Sue Coletta @SueColetta1 and Rosie Amber @rosieamber1. Sue was kind enough to encourage me and guide me in creating Sassy Redhead Book Review when I reached out to her after reading one her books in 2017 and she suggested I contact Rosie Amber, who kindly added me to her book review team and guided me in writing my reviews and posting. Thank you both, your kindness, guidance and friendship mean a lot to me, and Sue, your books ROCK!

I read a few different genres but as you can tell my from my blog posts, most of them are Romance whether it be dark, mafia, MC, military, or the few paranormal. I do enjoy reading psychological thrillers, suspense, mystery, and thrillers as well as police procedural. I love a good book and to me a good book is a book that will draw me in from the first page, keep my interest throughout, gives me all of the feels and leaves me wanting more of the story and characters.

I’d like to gift two of my followers with a $10 Amazon Gift Card as a thank you for your support. In a random drawing of my followers, @ailishsinclair7 and @jillburkishaw were drawn. I will be in contact to get your GC to you. Congratulations, and thank you to all of my followers and supporters. Have a great day and stay safe and healthy.

I’ve read and reviewed 146 books this year. That’s only the books that I have read and reviewed. I have read some other books that I did not review, but read just because I wanted to. Either they were part of a series that I read, or because they interested me otherwise. I was introduced to some new authors to me this year and I look forward to new authors to me in 2019 as well. Some of the books I read were really great and others were alright. I also now have 100 followers on my blog. That’s very exciting to me.

My wish is for everyone to have a Very Happy New Year and a wonderful 2019 full of reading. I look forward to reading more books by several authors that I really love to read; such as Bry Ann, A. Zavarelli, Maya Hughes, T.L. Smith, Tia Louise, Tijan, Sue Colletta, Laramie Brisco, and Natasha Knight just to name a few.

Title: The Penance List: The David Trilogy Book 1
Author: S. C. Cunningham
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Dark Romanc

The Penance List
This one comes with a warning – a steamy suspense-ridden psychological thriller – think Silence of the Lambs meets 50 Shades and hold on tight! S C Cunningham writes with a skilled mix of fuelled tension, dark humour and pulsating sex scenes. Grab a glass of wine, close the bedroom door and read alone!

I am currently reading this one and should finish and review by tonight. It is a really good story and I highly recommend it if you like psychological thrillers or dark romance. It has been hard to put it down once I start reading it, but I had to so that I could finish my course work. Now I can finish the book.

Next up will be:

Title: The Wolf’s Prize: Hinterland Series Book 4
Author: K. T. Harding
Genre: Paranormal Romance

I am looking forward to reading this one. I’ve read the other books in the series and have really enjoyed them. There is so much more than paranormal romance in this series in my opinion.

 

Next up will be:

Title: Roses and Thorns
Author: Bry Ann
Genre: Dark Romance

I look forward to reading this one. It looks good from the blurb.

One Rose.
One prisoner.
A crime boss.
… and a man determined to overthrow him.

All I wanted was to help women. Free them of their demons. Until he walks in. See, the treatment center I worked at was my home. The only one I’d known since I was seventeen.

I knew we’d opened a men’s unit. I got the honor of being head tech. He was a criminal. I was warned, prepared, professional. I knew it’d be hard… because of who my father is. I thought I was prepared.

I was anything but prepared.
I was taken.
Treasured.
Twisted by a criminal I swore I would never love.

Two love stories wrapped up in crime. In blood. Delivery.

Trigger Warning: This is a DARK romance. There is language, violence, sexual content and abuse.

 

I have more in the que, but will end with these for now.

 

 

I am so sorry for being MIA lately, but I have been finishing up my course work for my Biology 004 class. This was my final class of my college career and I had a lab with it, so I had to take more time away from my reading and posting for this semester. However, I finished the class, completed my labs, took the exam and now I am just waiting for the grades to be posted. With good luck and hopefully enough hard work, I have passed the class and will graduate on May 20, 2018 with my BA in English and a minor in Psychology.

April was a busy month with my class finishing up and I am the Administrative Assistant for the Mechanical Engineering Department at our local University. With the duties I have on a daily basis, I also had to organize and plan our Board of Advisor’s Meeting and our Senior Design Night Gala, and our honors award presentations, all on the same day. Senior Design Night is where our Senior Engineering students present their capstone design for their culmination of their college education. They take two semesters of Senior Design, working with a company, the medical center, or faculty at our University to come up with a solution to a problem and make it work. There are some really great projects and great ideas. Some of the companies that we work with are well known companies.

I have also gone back to eating healthy and following Weight Watchers since last May. In the past year, I have lost 60 pounds. I have a ways to go yet, but I am happy with the results and I feel much better. My blood pressure has gone down as well as my cholesterol. I went off for one day this week because I needed to celebrate being done my class, but I’m not worried. I’ll be back to following it again and losing again soon.

I am sorry for my ramblings, but I felt a couple of explanations were warranted for my being away and not posting as much lately. I am hoping to be back up and posting regularly this coming week. I am also doing a post of what I am completing and what will be up next. I have a large TBR, that I will probably never get through, but I love to read and will do it as much as I can.

I want to wish everyone a great weekend and hope that the weather is beautiful where you are so that you can enjoy it. We had tornado warnings last night in Vermont, but where I am in Northern Vermont, we only had some heavy winds and rain. I hope that if you are in the path of severe weather that you and your family are safe. Have a great day!

 

Thank you to Shari of TV Addicted Bookworm @tvaddictbookwm, for the nomination! Check out her blog at https://tvaddictedbookworm.wordpress and see what she’s been reading lately. Shari is a blogger and self proclaimed TV junkie.

The Sunshine Blogger Award is given by bloggers to other bloggers who are inspiring, positive, and creative. I am honored to be nominated and I hope that my reviews will guide you to some great books, and that you might find a new to you author.

1. What is your all-time favorite book? 

This is a hard question to answer. I have read so many books and have many favorites, but to say one is my all-time favorite, I would probably have to say The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

2. Are you currently binge watching anything? If so, what? 

No, I don’t watch much TV. I only watch one night a week.

3. If you had to pick a book boyfriend, who would it be?

Hmmm, this is a good question. I would probably have to say Derek Alexander, of One to Hold, by Tia Louise.

4. Who is your favorite author?

Hmmm, there are so many. I guess if I were going to choose the one author that I will one-click a book from it would be Sue Coletta.

5. What’s your favorite TV show and why?

This one is easy. My favorite TV show is NCIS. As to why, because I love the characters, and the chemistry they all have, and I enjoy the process of getting to the bottom of the crime and what brought it on.

I nominate:
Beckie Bookworm @beckie_shelton
DaisyGals Book Blog @DGBookBlog
Sue Coletta @SueColetta1
Angela @4IrishGirl
Rosie Amber @rosieamber1
Georgia Rose @GeorgiaRoseBook

 

Rules –
1 Write about it on your blog and thank the person who nominated you (Do tag him/her). Write about their blog too.
2 Display the award on your blog.
3 Nominate 5 – 10 people.
4 Let the nominees know that you’ve nominated them by linking to a post.

 

My questions:

1. Is there a certain book that launched your love of reading? Which book?
2. Name 3 items on your bucket list.
3. List your dream cast for your favorite book.
4. What is one of the best blogging tips you’ve ever heard or given?
5. What is your all-time favorite novel?

 

Synopsis

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m watching a movie . . . that it’s not really me, Claire Richards, getting this second chance at life.”

“Open your eyes, it’s you, and I’m damn glad it’s with me.” ~ Aiken

Single mom and college professor Claire Richards only wanted a few hours of me time to soak in her tub, read a book, and drink wine.

But tragedy struck, and Claire found herself with a lot more me time than she bargained for.

Three years later, Claire is still mourning her losses when Aiken Fordham—who looks young enough to be one of her college students—moves in next door.

Forcing Claire to face her fears, Aiken almost forgets his reason for moving to Small Town, Pennsylvania. Falling for the sexy, smart, and strong professor next door was never in the plan.

But now it is . . . until their future intersects with their pasts.

Preorder Exclusively on iBooks:

https://apple.co/2DQ48zn

Add to GoodReads: http://bit.ly/2Fwcs3R