"Can't You Just Give it to Me?"

My old workplace used to hold a craft fair every year around Thanksgiving time. It was both an opportunity for creators to make a little extra money and for employees to find unique Christmas gifts. A common offering was self-designed jewelry. There were maybe five or six booths offering handcrafted baubles (the company only had about 500 employees, or there would have been more). The best designs by far, in my opinion, were done by a co-worker in my department. She worked from home and I was in-house, so we only saw each other a couple times a week, when she stopped in to pick up new work. We enjoyed visiting with one another for those brief periods, and clearly, we were simpatico. I couldn't say the same for all the work-from-homers.

The weird thing, though, given our relationship, was that she never offered to just give me some of her jewelry. That was so insulting, I probably should have flitted right past her booth and ignored her, rather than buy a bunch of her bracelets, which I did, and I seldom even wear jewelry.

I suppose, in her defense, she put a lot of effort, creativity, and expertise into her designs, and she felt that was worth compensation. Silly! Apparently, she was unaware that if you give a potential customer a free bracelet, they're gonna come back and buy two or three more. I mean, everybody knows that, right? How conceited was she to assume her work deserved recognition in the form of payment? Isn't the recognition alone, a couple of nice words, payment enough?

My next-door neighbor is a painter--not as in painting houses, but a painter on canvas. He works art fairs regularly. We're not friends (at all; we barely know each other in passing), but come on, I live right next door! Couldn't he just give me one of his creations? To be neighborly? What's the big deal? He can always make more paintings. You know, if I got one for free, I "might" pay for another. Honestly, I wouldn't, but it's a good carrot to dangle out there in order to get free stuff.

Of all the creative pursuits, it seems that only the written word is expected to be given away for free. And really, why not? A writer can always write more words. Geez.

It's a weird thing about paintings and jewelry--a person will wear the jewelry, and once you hang a painting on the wall, you're gonna look at it. But a book? Nah. Books are so common, how could they be worth anything?

Free stuff is hard to resist, I admit. I'm a sucker for free stuff, even if it's stuff I have no use for. Those other jewelry booths at the craft fair? They could feature hideous necklaces; say, a pendant with a pewter buzzard hanging from it, and if the proprietor offered it to me for free, I'd no doubt take it. Although I would wonder why she didn't instead leave it hanging on her display board, awaiting a paying customer. "Is she giving me crap? No one else wants it, so she's pawning it off on me?" (See: self-published authors who offer their book for free.)

As writers, we're essentially told, "Good luck trying to sell. Just f'ing give your book away." A bunch of promo sites won't even let an author pay for an ad unless she prices her book as free. (I know; I've looked at almost all of them.) Some not only require the book to be free, but they have a vetting process, a stringent one--a certain number of reviews, a specific review average. Just to give a book away. 

It's true that most self-published books don't sell more than a handful of copies. It's not true that self-published books are worthless, an idea that's been drilled into our heads so much that many of us believe it. It's fine and dandy for a book promo site to make money off our books (our worthless books), but oh, no--don't even dare price one at $1.99! That's a bridge too far.

When are we authors going to rebel? I'm as guilty as anyone. I've done three FreeBooksy ads in 2025, for no other reason than ego. I got sick of pulling up my KDP report and finding it barren. (Even KDP is signaling that my books are worthless.) I lost $60.00 x 3, but at least my "sales" report looked pretty for a day or two. 

Paying for promos or ads is a money-losing venture for most of us. We price our books too cheaply to begin with, hoping someone might be tempted by the low, low price; and then we pay for ads. At a $2.99 price point, I make two bucks on a sale. If I pay $70.00 a week for a Facebook ad, which is peanuts compared to what most authors spend, I would need to sell 35 copies just to break even. The most those ads ever netted me was four sales. How many people go into a line of work knowing they're going to lose money? And that's not even taking into consideration our publishing costs--a nice cover, editing (for those who hire someone). Those people refuse to give their expertise away, like we're supposed to.

Everybody makes money off our labor, except us. We're chumps. 

A big part of our problem is that the market is flooded. If books were rare, all of us would be rich. And we wouldn't even need to lift a finger (or our wallets, in order to advertise). I don't have the answer. There is no answer. I do know that I'm tired of being exploited. 

At this point, I'll be content simply letting my books rest on Amazon's virtual shelf, unbothered, untouched. Unseen. They're safe and comfortable there. Like me, they're pretty much loners.