Before you return a Book, Think

 The latest thing in the cult of free is to take advantage of Amazon's seven day return policy on books. Ha, ha! You paid $5.99 for an e-book, devoured it in two days and returned it for a refund. Do you think Amazon cares? They are a huge, rich organization and would hardly notice or care. Who does? The author, who would have earned $1.68 in royalties on a work that took months of research and writing, then editing and doing all the little details needed to get that book out from cover selection to the blurb on the back, does. That is a year's worth of effort blown off by a person who could surely afford the $5.99 or they would be using the library to get books. Even a library app pays the author ten cents for each usage, not much, but something.

Of course, these are the same people who take advantage of the page reads, paying less than a penny a page. They read all but a few pages, get the deep discount, and a royalty for that book goes from 84 cents to 48 cents. I've asked for my books to be taken out of this program, because, well, it cheats authors many of whom have to earn at least $25 in royalties just to get a quarterly check. If not, the tiny earnings are held until the end of the year, not worth the paper four checks would be printed on and mailed. These are the majority of authors. I am sure Nora Roberts doesn't feel the pinch or any of the other big names in writing. When you sell millions of copies and probably get a big advance before the books comes out, who cares about a little cheating on behalf of the reader.

Generally, I make the $25 cut, but when I see that one of my books was been returned, no idea why but I am just guessing-getting it for free, I do notice the hole punched in my royalty statement--and yes, returns are reported. It is possible to end up in the hole. On my best year, I was able to afford a new French door refrigerator by saving up all my royalties. Another year I paid my half of a trip to Alaska. I sometimes refer for this account as my travel money. Both re lovely things, but I certainly am not making a living at writing. 

I write because I enjoy it and hope my readers do, too. If borrowed from a library or scammed from Amazon, even a review would be appreciated in lieu of payment, assuming the reader did not hate the book, but we never know the why of it. Consider, do you give a panhandler begging outside Walmart and holding up a barely legible sign a dollar out of pity. I guarantee some of these folks take home more in a day than I do writing. So, have some compassion for writers, too. Pay for the damn book and put $1.68 in our pocket.