I'm Not In This For the Money (Or I'd Be Dead)

Yesterday I received a post from Facebook that told me my posts have so far been liked 73,000 times. I thought it a cute factoid until I realized that Zuckerberg is making a pretty penny off of me. With 648 Facebook friends and with my commitment to make my Facebook entertaining and light-hearted, with my fascination with various subjects: writing, space flight, futurism, animation, gardening, etc., when readers (and maybe even you) pay my account a visit and click on an advertisement that strikes your fancy, Zuckerberg gets a penny or two.

Now I don't begrudge Zuckerberg his billions. I'm on Facebook with my eyes wide open and I know he is using me. It's okay because I'm using Zuckerberg.

I have a private account I run on behalf of the churches I pastor and Facebook is a great way for me to keep in contact with them and share important information. And on my personal Facebook account, I link to the blog you are reading now.

I will tell you honestly that what you are currently reading exists to entertain, promote my literary work, and in the process, make money for me. Not only do I promote my books that I hope people buy, but if you click on an ad here, I get anywhere from $.001 to $.01.

However, I think I better rethink my marketing plan. I started my blog on March 24th, 2015. So far, I have made a whopping $8.95 in ad revenue.

And the writing? Well, my wife tallied up our paperwork for taxes. Since my first published book (Opal Wine released on December 9th, 2013) in paperbacks I have made $28.04 in US dollars and £3.47 in English pounds. For ebooks, in the same period, I have made $46.28, a combined whopping total revenue of $79.25 for five years of writing.

(NOTE: I am not including revenue from magazines and publishing as payments are negligible and probably do not come to anything more than $250 since my first magazine acceptance way back in 1998.)

Thankfully, I still have a full-time job or I would be an authentic starving writer.

However, there are ways you can still help me and others as writers:

1. Buy my books.
2. LEAVE A REVIEW! These are gold. I can't tell you how important they are.

Nonetheless, I will continue to write even if I can't make millions. I'm driven to tell my stories.