Pay Off

As is the dream for most novelists, I had a desire to support myself by writing books alone. It didn’t take me long to realize how difficult this dream is to reach. You have to be incredibly well known to stand a chance in the writer’s market, if you’re hoping to have the craft feed you that is. Regardless, simply being published soon becomes the back-up dream that you turn to, and in my case, I took matters into my own hands. I self-published to the extreme, and have been in local bookstores for many months now. That is why today was something else.

You see, if a bookstore takes in your novels, they will give you a trial period. During this time, they will watch how well your books sell. If you sell enough in the allowed time, then they will take more books. If not, they will hand the books back. This isn’t the case in all bookstores. In some they will hold your books if they have enough shelf space to do so, but one store I was in had a trial period of six months. I haven’t counted to the day, but Solstice Books in Hanover has been shelving my books for about six months, and today I stopped by to see if he would take my latest book, ‘Survivor’. It was then I found out with relief, even astonishment, that my books have actually sold. He not only took the new book gladly, but asked me to ‘top off’ the rest of his stock. My favourite fact that hit me was that, without doubt, someone that I don’t know was a buyer of my novels. Everyone I know who came to this bookstore had already gotten a copy from me. I also found out that my books in Finchers have been selling as well. The said buyers came to my latest book launch seeking the new novel.

It is all very rewarding in its own way, but what did the trick was having the owner of Solstice Books hand me $34.90 for sales. It isn’t a lot of money, I know, but it was material proof that I had gotten somewhere. It was another step in a direction that suited me. By the looks of things, I only need to sell books in Millennia Books across the street from Solstice. They haven’t sold any of mine yet, and I’d like that to happen. I would feel a sense of security with them if that were to happen, so if you’re after a copy of any of my novels, just walk into Millennia and ask where Zack Metcalfe’s stuff is shelved. You’d make my day.