When people think of children authors, big names are the
ones immediately conjured in their minds. J.K. Rowling, Holly Black, John Green,
Suzanne Collins. But the publishing
industry is huge, highly competitive, and full of authors you’ve likely never
heard of before. Included in those are indie authors, like myself.
As an indie author, we often don’t have the same amenities
popular authors have nor the luxury of an influential marketing staff. More
often than not, we have to do much of the marketing and promotions ourselves.
And that takes money. We’re not talking pocket change either. We’re talking
about actually financial investments. This includes shelling out money to be a sponsor
at conventions to get your name out, hosting book giveaways where you not only
lose income on the book itself but also have to pay for mailing it out, as well
as buying ads on various websites. It adds up and it takes a huge hit to our
wallets. We do NOT make the income that those big name authors receive. Not
even close. Most authors, in fact, make less than $10,000 a year. This isn’t
something we do as a full time job. We work day jobs and do our writing careers
on our “free time”. And when I say free time, I mean the fleeting hours we have
between when we get home from our day jobs and go to bed, and the weekends when our
friends are going out and we have to stay inside to continue our work. Pursuing a writing career means sacrificing a lot of money and social time.
The amount an author invests in their careers and promoting
their books can be upward of $1,000. It’s not cheap, but it is a necessity. So
when you turn to your author friend and say “Oh hey, can I get a copy of your
book?” and then balk when we state the price, you're essentially
delivering a slap in the face to us. You’re disregarding the time, effort, and
money we’ve put into creating our works and cultivating our careers. You’re saying
that we’re not worthy as artists. Additionally, just think if we gave free
copies to all our friends - we would barely make any profit from it at all. Friends
and family often are our primary buyers. And if we’re being totally honest, I
use the term “profit” with a grain of salt, because more often than not we
still only just break even after everything else… if we’re lucky.
Have I given out free copies of Ashwood outside of
promotional giveaways? Yes, I have. Two copies. One to my mother, the other to
my cover artist. One because she gave birth to me, and the other because she
was kind enough to design my cover for free (and no, I didn’t ask – she offered
because she believed in me and wanted to give Ashwood the best chance it could
in the market).
So here’s the deal, people. Unless you’ve played a
significant role in the birth of said author or the book itself, don’t expect
to get a copy for free. In fact, don’t even ask. It’s nothing less than an
insult to us. No one is going to blame you if you don’t have the means to
purchase a copy. If you can, great… but we don’t expect it. There are other
ways you can support your writer friends than buying a copy – you can share
information about it on social media. You can attend events your friend hosts. You
can use your contacts to help them network and boost their careers. Things like
that only costs your time and they truly do matter. But asking for a free copy?
That only causes hurt feelings and bruised hearts, so please, please, please… just
don’t do it.
