I am a big fan of David Sedaris thanks to my friend Mark Pocan who arrived at my house in Botswana (travelling all the way from Madison Wisconsin, USA) bearing gifts among them books written by Mr Sedaris. I think he is Fabulous (yes with a capital F) and I think this idea is one of his best. Put a tip jar at your book signing table. Wow!! I could do with an extra $4000 I don't know about you.
Writers are notoriously underpaid and I think it might be time to climb out of the box as Mr Sedaris has and come up with some ways to expand that income base. (I wouldn't advocate the selling of drugs as one commenter on the Guardian article suggested)
So what ideas do you have? I'm keen to hear- and of course promptly steal.
7 comments:
Have you tried putting out short stories on Kindle? I find ebooks sales is excellent supplement of income.
Fire and Cross
Enid- I've been thinking of doing just that. The problem right now in Botswana is that PayPal only works for sending money not recieving. This is a HUGE problem for me. I wonder if anyone knows of another online payment system that would be easy for people to use.
Great! I love it... a tipbox!!
Re your comment: I have been trying for years to get some way of being able to take online payments in Botswana. Although we have 2 card machines for our shops, we are not even allowed to do 'manual' transactions (where people send you their card details). This apparently is only reserved for people in the tourism industry,and I'm not sure why!!
The person I spoke to at FirstCard, asked me to submit a business proposal, to suggest why I thought we would be eligible for this facility, but of course I have not yet got round to it! I will let you know if I ever figure it out!!!
Girl - You live in Botswana. I live in Atlanta, Georgia - USA. I own two properties and the thought - before our real estate bust - was to sell them and move to Botswana. My point is..., you are living many of our dream - certainly mine. I am envious and hope you find a method of enhancing your income. When you do please share because I have two properties to sell and then I will join you and together we can make a million pula plan!!!!
Cheers,
Dana
Thanks for stopping by my blog Dana. Your blog is very interesting. Of course I don't live in the wildlife/tourist areas, I live in Mahalapye, so you don't need to be too envious.
You know Karen, I thought perhaps I could get a credit card in South Africa and then open a PayPal account with that card, perhaps give a residential address in South Africa. Do you know if that would work? No one seems to know. FNB does allow you to have a South Africa creidt card but not sure of the PayPal side. I know in SA you can send and recieve money with PayPal.
Being underpaid in this line of business especially for authors seem pretty much of no surprise to me. With so many authors emerging from nowhere nowadays with their own unique stories to tell, getting paid the right amount can be so hard. But still, thanks to some people because they are now making strategies to generate more income for underpaid authors and deserve what they really should have for their work.
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