Please buy a book today.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t have to be my book. It doesn\u2019t have to be an expensive book.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t even have to be a traditional book made out of paper, purchased at a bookstore. It could be an e-book. But please buy a book.<\/p>\n
You see, most authors don\u2019t make the bestseller lists. We don\u2019t count our sales in the thousands, or even the hundreds. We count our sales by tens, and sometimes by ones \u2013 one more copy sold here, one more copy sold there. If not enough copies are sold, we don\u2019t get the chance to have our work published again.<\/p>\n
Publishing is a business, and publishers look at numbers. An author might have a very devoted, passionate fanbase, but if the sales aren\u2019t there then that author may not be able to continue writing professionally.<\/p>\n
Most writers do not make six-figure royalties.\u00a0 We are lucky if we make enough to feed our kids. Every writer I know has either a day job or an extremely supportive partner or both, because you just can\u2019t live off what you make writing.<\/p>\n
And the truth is, authors don\u2019t write to make tons of money. We write because we love it. All we want is to sell enough books so that we can keep doing what we love.<\/p>\n
I know that the economy has changed, and bookstores have closed, and people just don\u2019t have extra money in their pockets the way they used to. I know that the library is a wonderful place to discover new books for free.<\/p>\n
And I know that it can be very tempting to get a free download online, and to justify it to yourself by saying that authors make lots of money and it doesn\u2019t matter if one person gets a book for free.\u00a0 The trouble is, it\u2019s not usually one person, or even a dozen. It might be a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand. And those copies that went unsold might mean that the author who wrote the book that you got for free doesn\u2019t get another contract.<\/p>\n
Writers want to write. We love to write, and we love to have readers reading what we wrote.\u00a0 We\u2019re not trying to get rich. We\u2019re trying to live, just like you.<\/p>\n
So please \u2013 if you love books, if you love to read, go out and buy a book today.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please buy a book today. It doesn\u2019t have to be my book. It doesn\u2019t have to be an expensive book.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t even have to be a traditional book made out of paper, purchased at a bookstore. It could be … Continue reading