Encouraging mooching will get you nowhere fast…

So last night on a Facebook group, a woman asked about getting Neil Gaiman’s work for free, and I tried telling her politely at first that even big-time writers needed sales. I then suggested Anansi Boys as a good place to start. Said person, who went under the handle Gypsy and had a stereotypically inappropriate avatar, informed me that she wouldn’t spend money on a writer without knowing their style first. I responded that Neil doesn’t have any one writing style, so she said “then I won’t bother with him. It’s a waste of money.” So I called her a moocher, she said, “Oh Neil doesn’t really need my money.” I called her a moocher again, so she boo-hooed to others about how means I was.

The incredible part of this is, the group is run by a publisher, and the publisher’s moderator apologized to the woman for me and said I don’t understand how things work. They were of course willing to give their author’s work away because they’re struggling and need the exposure.

Oy vey. (y.y) I could get this attitude if they were a single writer just starting out, but a publisher sucking up to someone asking how to get the work of a writer not on their label, and not even suggesting that they look into buying work…it’s really sad that the publisher doesn’t feel the need to support their own writers and ask for money for the artistic efforts of the people they work with.

Look, people, exposure is financially worthless. In the history of the art world, no landlord has ever said, “I’ll take some of your exposure in lieu of your late rent.” No bill collector has ever said, “Oh, you got new exposure? Well send some of that over and we’ll discount what you owe us.” Exposure won’t keep you or your family fed, and it won’t keep you clothed. Free exposure of your art will likely lead to exposure to the elements unless you take a day job.

Moochers don’t feel obligated to make reviews. Y’all may not remember back in the day when I did give away work for free, but I kept politely reminding people, “I’m getting all this traffic, but no reviews. Please, I really need your help with just a small review somewhere.” For this repeated call for support from my free readers, I got called entitled. I got told that it’s wrong to expect support just because I gave my work for free. Giving my work away meant that I was the sucker for not charging upfront, and just the fact that these moochers read me was exposure enough.

Try to appreciate what a fatal fallacy this is to encourage free readers who aren’t willing to risk their hard earned cash. They won’t pay your authors. EVER. They’ll wait until you give the book out for free, and the author makes nothing. They won’t review the books they read either, so there’s no benefit of word of mouth advertising. There’s no exposure except for the exposure you struggle to create for yourself. It’s lose-lose. You’re still not getting paid for all your hard work, and you aren’t getting any help with promotions.

The thing that burns me up about these entitled people is, if their boss came in and said, “Hey, today why don’t you work without a paycheck on this new task just to show me if you can do it?” these people would say, “No can do, boss.” People expect and demand a fair wage for their work, and no one besides the extremely rich would think of that as an entitled attitude. Get paid for your work; simple, and everyone agrees with that.

UNLESS YOU’RE AN ARTIST. Then suddenly lots of people feel you should give your work for free and try to live on exposure. Musicians are told to give tracks out for free, and then monetize their work by touring and selling concert shirts. Some musicians are doing just that because they don’t make any money off of releasing new music. They make money from concert tickets and T-shirts.

But writers only have their words to sell. I can’t monetize my book covers because they’re the work of the artists. If I wanted to sell shirts, I would have to negotiate a different license with the artists and give them a percentage of shirt sales. So instead of writing, I’m playing accountant for my cover artists. This is not my gig, y’all. I’d rather pay the artist for the use of their image and then sell my books.

I can’t do a reading tour for fees. When writers go out and do reading tours, they pay out of pocket for the tour, and they don’t charge for tickets to have people come to them. When they do these tours, they take along print books to sell. I can’t afford to ship print books to a store and then sign them and do a reading. The price I sell my print titles at means I only make a few cents per book, and no matter how many copies I sell, it won’t cover the cost of my trip. It’s a losing proposition.

Y’all may think I’m bitching at my readers, but I’m bitching at readers who expect work for free and are willing to give nothing in return. That’s not my people. These days, my readers pay me first. So whether they review me or not is totally up to them because they already paid me and have provided real support. Some of my supporters have even sent me money JUST BECAUSE. One of my readers sent me money because I was lamenting the cost of a new DVD player. So they sent me $100 to cover the cost. They didn’t even ask for a book in return! I know, it’s shocking, amazing behavior, and I’m still stunned and overwhelmed with gratitude to that fine human being.

With the money I get from my loyal readers, I can pay my web host, or hire cover artists. With their money, I can goof off and buy video games, or I can buy books from other writers. Money really helps a lot because what my readers give me allows me to support other artists. Not just writers and cover artists, but also musicians. It’s all over win-win.

And while I’m on this topic, I’ve decided to back off of promotions during the next few months because I don’t have any new releases. It’s very stressful promoting all day, every day, and it doesn’t really bring in that many extra sales. Despite this lapse in my promotions, I’ve still got new sales for this month on Amazon, both for new releases and for my first book, The Lesser of Two Evils, and my first ebook, Blood Relations. And y’all, nothing feels better than pulling up that sales report and seeing new sales. Not new free downloads, and not new exposure. It’s new sales. It’s real monetary support, and it fucking rocks like a rock in a rocking chair at a rock concert.

This is why I only rarely ask you about reviews now, and why I don’t push it all that much. Yes, reviews and exposure would be awesome. But getting paid? Man, that feels really good. I’m making new sales month in and out, which tells me that even if I am a niche artist with no presence on the mainstream radar, I do have support for my art. This is exactly what I wasn’t getting back when all my stuff was free and I was working for just the exposure. Putting a price on my work and insisting I get paid first has brought me a fan base of people so loyal, they even give me extra money to help make ends meet. They support me with money, not “free exposure.” And I love them for their support. Not fake love, either. Real, true love.

So, by all means, go on and suck up to the moochers because you just want to be read. But don’t you expect anything positive from their presence in your social circles. They don’t buy books, they don’t do reviews, and they only take, take, take without giving anything back. They’re the vampires of the art world, and we shouldn’t be begging them to look at us like we’re so desperate for attention that we’ll even welcome people who are harmful to our development.