Putting a book into the world requires so much more than writing cohesive sentences. That alone can takes months. Then there is editing, which requires me to pay someone to look at those sentences, make sure the timeline is correct, I haven't mixed up character names, I haven't repeated myself (which happens a lot), etc. I do not have talent in making covers, so I have to purchase the photos and hire a professional to make a gorgeous cover. That just putting the book together.
Then there's the social media posts, the newsletter, the website, some of which cost money. In trying to get my newsletter ready, I was notified I can no longer use my @gmail account, so I had to get a personalized email. No biggie, right? Wrong. I haven't logged on to go daddy in a while, so I had to recover that account. For whatever reason, all my passwords are no longer saved, so I'm resetting passwords. To get a new email account, I had to log into go daddy after recovering the account, resetting the password, paying for the email, then adding a code to the website. To do that, I had to reset the password for the website host. I did all this, and when I hit "done" on the go daddy site, it said, "Great, come back in an hour." Sigh.
Let's look at the math. If I put my books out for 3.99 and sell 1000 copies, that's $3990. But first, I have to deduct the editing, the proofreading, the photo, and the cover design. That leaves $2560. Remember, it took 3 months to write/edit the book. Assuming it takes 3 months at 8 hours of writing, 5 days a week for 3 months? That breaks down to less than $5 per hour. That's less than minimum wage. It takes some longer to write their books and some shorter, but this is a real example of what an author makes on 1000 books sold (not taking into account we don't get the full 3.99. In fact, we get 70% of that, so that $5 per hour now becomes a lot less.) That $5 per hour is needed to pay for the website and the newsletter sites.
Why am I saying all this? I am not complaining. All these things are necessary to put books into the world. It costs money to make money. I get that. But there are those out there who steal an authors words and put them on piracy sites or somehow copy and paste the books into their own and change character names and say "Voila, look what I did." There are those readers who want to know why an e-book is no longer $3.99. This is why.
I will continue writing as long as the books are selling, but my days are not 8 hours, 5 days a week. They are often 12 or 14 hour days, 7 days a week. I love what I do. I love my readers, my characters, my stories. If I didn't, I would find a job that paid more than minimum wage.
