We do what?! 

Created: Sunday, 17 May 2015 08:18 | Written by Glen R Stansfield

The book world is a strange one.

The author puts in many hours of effort, hundreds of the little things in fact, to produce something for others to get pleasure from.

The book goes to the marketplace; the author then puts in many more hours to get the book to sell.  If they are lucky the sales will be in the hundreds, if they are very lucky, maybe in the thousands. Only the extremely lucky will hit the jackpot with bestsellers worldwide.

And yet, every year the number of authors is increasing, we are drowning in a sea of stories, many written by very talented people.

Once the initial surge of sales (surge might not be an appropriate word, but we'll use it anyway) dies down, we look to further the sales by offering discounts. Once this has run its course we have to resort to giving our books away in the hopes that some positive reviews will spur on more people to pay for a copy.

Whoa!, We do what? When was the last time you saw Ford or Mercedes, or General Motors offering a free car to increase sales? Has your greengrocer offered you a day's shopping, on the house, in the hopes you will come again? I can tell you, the number of times I have seen that happen I can count on the fingers of my foot. So why on earth do we do that with our books?

I'm assuming that somewhere in the dim and distant past, someone came up with the idea to leap ahead of the others.  Whoever it was created a monster. Now the public sits back and waits for the freebies. To be fair, don't you, if you know at some point you'll get something for nothing?

So are we writing for profit? On the face of it, no, we couldn't possibly be. If you calculate our hourly rate on the average book sales, we are likely to make more money picking up dropped coins from the pavement, or sitting there with a hat and a soulful expression.  So is it for the love? I think that has something to do with it. I know I love to write, and I love the positive feedback from others (I don't look at the negatives, I'm a sensitive soul). On the other hand, I still buy lottery tickets so maybe that is the real reason.

p.s. If anyone from Jaguar is listening, I'll give you a really good review for a free F Type!

Fishing for Stones is available from Amazon.com  http://amzn.to/1KWjvQa  and Amazon UK http://amzn.to/1bJe6iJ  but it isn't free!