Stop right there! Don’t donate any more money!

You’re on twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+, wherever; every time you turn around, someone’s got their greasy palm out, asking for handouts. “Donate, please; I’m on IndieGoGo, I’m on Patreon, I’m on Gofundme, come support me at Twitch TV, come support me here, there, everywhere.”

Aren’t you sick of it? Every time you turn around, someone wants you to give them money for doing what they enjoy doing, and then what, they give you a little trinket, maybe, maybe, if you donate enough.

Well, if you’re not sick of it, I am. People draw pictures—they’re at Patreon, wanting you to give them money, to support their lifestyle. Tell ‘em to go get a job and draw their little pictures on the side until they can support themselves.

People want to dress up as cartoon characters, and they stick their ugly mitts out, asking for you to give them money, so they can play dress up for a living. If they want to play dress up for a living, they need to work a real job and earn their own cash until they can support themselves from their side hustle.

You even have people who write books, writers like me, on Patreon, Gofundme, and IndieGoGo; they’re asking you for 5,000, 10,000, 30,000 dollars so they can write and publish a book! You want to give them your money?! Are you out of your mind?

Let them work a day job like Bon Jovi did before he made it big in the music industry. People can work, and they can write, or play video games, or dress up in their spare time until their passion pays off. Don’t go donate to their cause.

Did Macklemore or Kanye ask for handouts? Did Dan Brown? Did Harrison Ford?! Did David Schwimmer ask anyone for money when he was an unemployed, struggling actor? No! These people worked real jobs while they developed their passion into a paying profession.

Here’s what you need to do. You need to find someone who will pay you to help them get their service, art, product or whatever out to the public.

Peep this; I want you to make money off me, not the other way around. I’ve been writing since 2011, and I worked a day job when I first began. Then, as my books sold, as I wrote more and more books, and more books sold, and more people learned about me and enjoyed my work, I was able to cut back to working part time. Now, I’m successful, and all without sticking my grubby fists out, begging for someone to support me while I type a few thousand words at a computer for an hour or two a day.

Understand, my books sell, and since you already read, and you already discuss what you read, you sell books!

Yes! That’s how it works! If you have a book blog, a review site, anything where you discuss the books you’ve read and loved then you sell books. It’s your praise, your discussion, your sharing of thoughts and emotions that generates buzz, and that means that you are selling books for the authors, the editors, the publishers, but is anyone paying you?

No! They got their damned, slimy fingers out, asking for you to give your money, but you work, don’t you?! I’ll bet you do, but you still make the time to read, and write about what you read, and discuss with your fan base, who cherish your thoughts, and they go out, and they buy the books you praise, and you aren’t asking for anyone to support what you enjoy doing, right?

Not to mention that those crowdfunders—with their creepie-crawlie little fingers—then go out and sell a product or service to the consumers, thus they earn money twice; once from your donation, and they earn again when they sell their book, picture, music, whatever!

You sell books, so why aren’t you earning any money? Where’s your cut? Why are you giving your money away?

I got your cut! Your cut is here!

Smashwords has a referral link for anyone who wants to sell Smashwords books. You can make a free Smashwords account, supposing you don’t already have one, and you can link up your PayPal account. That way, when you add the referral URL to your site along with your review and dissemination of that title, and people buy the book through your site, you earn a cut of the sale.

You just paste the link to your site. It’s that freakin’ simple! People click on it, and when they buy the book, it counts as your sale! No third party software like most affiliate marketing schemes. No pay per click like most affiliate marketing schemes.

Now, here’s the thing; normally, Smashwords books give you an 11% cut of the profit, so you basically earn something like $0.08 out of each dollar because the writer gets their cut, Smashwords gets a cut, and then there are some billing fees, but here’s the thing; the real thing, the real deal; I am increasing the profit from the referral link to 25%.

This means that you can earn more by selling my books. What’s that? Yes, you earn. No, I don’t want you to support me. I want to support you. You can sell my books, or Hell, you can sell anyone’s books, but not everyone will give you 25% of the profit, and not everyone can write like I do.

If you’re one of my loyal fans, you know I’m better than the Bee’s Knees; I’m the Gazelle’s Bells. If you’re not one of my fans…yet, feel free to download any of my free titles. You can’t sell those, but after you give the free titles a read, you’ll see how good I am, and you’ll believe that my books sell themselves.

The Adventures of Larson and Garrett - Google+

Just check out this cover, title, blurb, and review.

Gods, Dragons, a mercenary with a blade and no memory of his past.... The world of Tiamhaal is alight in war. Men ruled by kings slay their opposition in the name of their God, but there are others who claim the Gods are little more than scorned Dragons of ages past. Scar has come to find the truth, but is the truth an absolute certainty, or is it just the skewed memory of a forgotten kingdom?

Reader review-

Scar is a complete mystery to everyone, including himself. He has no past that he can recall. He only knows that he woke up being attacked by a roving band of Dracs, hopelessly outnumbered, yet somehow managed to hack through all of them. His fighting prowess is amazing, and he has the ability to heal in moments anything but mortal wounds.

He finds himself a mercenary in the employ of Zoltek, leader of the Usaj, who has promised to request his god Zmaj reveal Scar’s past, and restore his memory. Double-crossed by Zoltek and left for dead, Scar finds himself catapulted into an epic struggle for truth between Dragons posing as gods and the gods they are replacing.

Wielding his gargantuan two-handed sword with its odd diamond-shaped holes, he carves a path through everyone blocking him from uncovering the truth about his past, his future, and the gods and dragons the people serve.

Gods and Dragons is an obviously large epic fantasy series launch, on the scale of The Wheel of Time. The world building is amazing, and there are more people groups, religions, magical ‘blessings’ and countries than you could possibly remember. The action in places is gripping, and the characters, especially Scar and Labolas, are well-defined and real. Scar reminds me of Conan, but with more brain. His hack-and-slay mentality however, has him rushing into any confrontation, confident in his ability to mow down the opposition faster than Link can cut the grass.

End review-

This book sells for $4.99, so if you sell even one copy of this book, you’ll earn about $1.00. Is that a lot? No, but isn’t earning a dollar better than donating five dollars, so that someone can sit in front of their computer and type for an hour or two a day? Isn’t this better than most of the convoluted affiliate marketing schemes?

Plus, I have seven titles for sale at the moment with one more coming out by the end of 2017, and probably another two more titles before 2019.

If you sell just a few copies a day, everyday, by practically doing nothing, and whatever you are doing is what you already love doing—reading and reviewing—you can earn 5, 10, 20 dollars a day, easy—from just my books, and like I said, you can put anyone’s books up on your book blog or review site. This is passive income.

Think about it. You can keep donating to everyone who thinks they’re a writer, or musician, or cosplayer, or whatever, and you can go broke, while you work, and they play, or you can earn money by just putting up some links to some books on your book blog or review site. As I said, this is passive income.

Is it really that tough to figure out which benefits you? Passive income benefits you!

Listen, crowdfunding has a definite role in the indie entertainment industry. Film producers and game developers do need crowdfunding. When James Rolfe of AVGN crowdfunded his AVGN movie, he not only threw in all of his money, he crowdfunded in order to pay for permits, to hire actors, editors, and to rent equipment and shoot sites.

That’s when people need crowdfunding, to organize an entire production. Rolfe used the crowd funds to employ people. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with lazy people asking for handouts in order to do something, which can easily be done in spare time after coming home from an honest day’s work.

Now, look at this book. This just came out in February of 2017.

This is actually a re-release of a title that was originally published through a small press, but I didn’t like how much they were charging for it, and when it was first released, it had a terrible cover, and quite a few formatting errors, but now it’s updated, and all set to go.

Did I get on Patreon, GofundMe, or IndieGoGo and ask for people to give me money to buy the new cover art or hire an editor? No, I paid for it out of pocket because my profits come from selling a quality product to consumers.

I know you can easily sell this book for $4.99 and earn a dollar, I know because I sell books all the time. You can sell books, too, and all from doing what? Pasting a link to your book blog or review site, and then just hanging back, and letting your fans come to your site, and buy the books straight from you. It’s what you’re already doing. If you aren’t already running your own book blog or review site, you can start now; you have the incentive.

It’s so easy; I should know; I sell a ton of books, my books, and you can sell them, too, and then when people stick their greasy mitts out, lookin’ for a handout, you tell ‘em if they want money for their side hustle, they can go sell Dennis’s books.

Thanks, everyone, you guys are the best. Don’t give your money to people who laze around their homes all day doing nothing. You don’t need to be supporting healthy, young, lazy people. You don’t even need to be buying my books. Just sell ‘em. Let the others work for a living until their product, service, or art can support itself, and you worry about your income.

I want everyone to succeed from doing what they love just as much as you do, but I want to pay you to succeed; I don’t want you to support me. There’s a right and a wrong way to crowdfund. There’s a right and a wrong way to get involved with affiliate marketing. I’m just trying to simplify the process, and make sure that everyone can earn some money rather than having everyone who works for money give me their share.

I know you can get on board with that. Right? Sure you can. Start earning something for your hard work and passion today, and stop supporting lay-abouts, who call themselves artists. This is the conservative movement; look out for your pockets, your income, and stop trying to get everyone to support everyone else. If you work hard, and take care of yourself, you don’t need a handout; no, you can earn money by doing what you love.

I’ve had about enough of this crowdfunding madness, and I know you have, too. If not, if you’re okay with giving your money away to someone who pockets your cash, 1,000’s of dollars, and then spends 15 bucks to produce a poorly written novel, a single shot of them dressed like Princess Zelda, a water color painting that took 7 minutes to paint then you go ahead, and you give your money away, but if you’re like me, and you’re pissed off that every time you hop on social media, you see numerous people asking for handouts just so they can sit on their butts, and play dress up, or write a book, or sing at their computer’s microphone, do something about it.

Stop the madness. Stop donating. Start earning!

Thanks again.