This Isn’t Really a Blog Post: Charity Donations Update

The Christmas season is a great time to give an update on donations. Twenty percent of my book profits I send back to nonprofits and charities. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, and I’m really glad I started. Sure, I don’t see quite the profit margin I would have, but I like being able to donate to these groups.

I choose the group based on book sales. Most of my self-published book sales are for the Zombie Dog series, so I like to donate those profits to a local no-kill shelter. When Terrible Lizard or one of the New Profanity books does well, I provide to Dinosaur Ridge. I have also donated to the Native American Heritage Association and the Galveston County Food Bank. This year I donated almost $300 to various charities.

The Galveston County Food Bank is new this year, and a direct reflection of the times. I’d heard how the food banks are struggling, so back in March and April, I did book sales for all the Zombie Dog books. Then again this month when I was looking at the donations that I usually send to Bay Area Pet Adoptions, I decided I’d rather send the autumn donations back to the food bank. They are doing wonderful things helping out the people in our country who are out of work and hungry.

As an aside note, I purchased some Scouting popcorn from a scout in Amarillo, Texas earlier this year. The boy had a bad encounter while selling popcorn, and the person answering the door was very unkind and using negative language. (I think they were taking out their frustrations and anger with the organization out on the young scout, which is the wrong thing to do.) So I said screw them, I’m buying some popcorn. I sent my purchases to the Galveston County Food Bank. Hopefully they were able to use it, but honestly, if they have stipulations that don’t allow them to accept food donations through the mail, and they had to toss it, that’s fine, too. The point was to support the young scout.

I also want to highlight Dinosaur Ridge. Unlike the other nonprofits, I have an account with them. The cool thing about the account is that I can see how much I’ve donated in the last 18 months. I was shocked to see I’d donated $163 to them. I have to admit, this was to the benefit of my own ego. As a writer, you always assume the worst. I won’t be successful, nobody will buy my book, etc., etc. So seeing that $163 gives validation to my sales. I mean, that’s only 20% of the sales, so the rough math says I sold a lot of those books!

Donating is important. I don’t look at these books as being my main source of income (though I would very much like them to be). So instead, I want to do good with them. I want to have fun and be creative, laugh and cry, and maybe help somebody out with them. Which is why I want to say thank you. Sincerely, it means a lot to me that you’ve purchased my books. If you didn’t buy them, I couldn’t donate this money. So, thank you. I hope you have a happy holiday! Being able to give back to others has increased my Merry Christmas.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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