Writers write because they love writing. Writers publish for the money.

We always hear the saying: “Don’t write for the money. Write because you love it.”

While that’s a nice little saying, most of the time it’s not very practical. If writers could pay their bills and fill their bellies with the scraps of torn up love letters, we would, trust me.

Since the very secret (wink wink) soft launch of my book last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the “money thing” and what it means to me. I promise you that I didn’t write The Darkness of Light for money. I wrote it because it was in me and it needed to come out. Writers write because they love writing. Writers  publish for the money. So I guess you could say that’s why I published my book, after all, it certainly isn’t listed as a free book. But do I really care about the money?

This week has been a bit crazy for me. Without any real promo and no blog tour, I’ve actually sold quite a few books! More than I expected when I announced it was available. I even ranked well on Amazon for most of last week. It was probably the most exciting point in my writing career so far. I loved knowing that people were reading my book. I loved getting messages saying how much they like it and pictures of people reading it. I’m so grateful to everyone who took the time to contact me and let me know they had The Darkness of Light in their dirty little hands.

Because I had such a great week with sales, that also means that I’ve earned royalties. But here’s the thing…I don’t even care about the royalties! A check in the bank is great, and I certainly can’t feed myself with scraps of paper, but the royalty doesn’t bring the happiness. The readers do! That’s what I care about. I care that I’ve written something that someone wants to read.

So the lesson, my friends, is that writers live off the joy of being a writer, and survive off the money that (hopefully) comes with it.