Good Advice for Bad Experiences

Don’t let your writing dreams be crushed! Every writer faces the sudden happiness of a possible success ahead only to have it ripped away by an unforeseen detail or overlooked fine print. People think that all we do is write. We research. We sacrifice time with our families. We even attend school to become better writers in hopes that our new credentials with benefit us financially.

Reality check—it may look good to some companies, but others are just there to take advantage of you like the universities and colleges already did.

Over the years I have worked with many publishers. I have enjoyed many experiences, even ones that didn’t pan out. I have also had bad experiences where royalties were never paid, or royalties were not what they were said they would be. Some of these publishers have gone out of business or have changed their name to avoid the bad rap they developed.

Others are major brands that cannot change their name so easily, yet they have worded their promises so carefully that it is the authors who wind up at fault. Here is the thing—businesses don’t prosper unless they make money. Well—in today’s world books are still controlled by the major corporations which is why it is so difficult to see you books physically stocked in major stores.

Promises of making higher royalties by selling exclusively on a site sounds too good to be true, but what do you have to lose? Time and money is the answer to that—and you will never get it back! Never be exclusive with anyone unless these promises of higher royalties are fronted to you. There is always fine print or an escape clause for the company that leaves you—the authors, screwed!

Branch out and try different things. Test the waters with new publishers or resource hubs to learn success stories and failures that can provide data to correlate to develop a plan. You are going to get frustrated. There is no getting around that. What keeps my head above water? I love to write! I don’t really care what it is sometimes. Like right now, at this very moment I am dictating this article for your benefit and it is my way of getting over my frustrations with being exclusive on a site only to find out my $148 is only $3.

It happens! Learn from the experience and move on. That’s what life is about anyhow, the experiences we all have as individuals. Will my writing ever put food on the table for my family? Will I ever be able to retire? I’ve adapted to these scary questions. That’s my way of telling you that no one can answer them because it is all different for each of us. If only we supported each other like our society once did. Oh, you write? I’ll check you out, but you must sign the copy I get… My ego isn’t too big. I sign for free. In fact, I did a signing last December and made nothing. The store made all the revenue. I am doing another signing this October. This time I believe things will be different! That’s all writers can do is believe in themselves, because until you do, no one else will!