I can explain that one!
This is not a complaint either, because it was a great life experience to write these books and if they inspired someone, then it was a total win.
Having said that, it was a monumental disappointment financially.
I have no problem telling this story, and hope it helps others who may consider writing (for income).
The short version...
When McGraw-Hill reached out to me for the first book "Bonanza", I originally said no, knowing that writing a 300 page book was going to be a huge time commitment. Kat and I were running a computer networking and service business at the time.
Everyone around me kept saying... "are you nutz? getting a book contract is almost impossible!" So I said yes.
The Book did fairly well right away, and although royalties were far from the "do this for a living" scenario, I wondered if doing more books might be a possible career path. I came up with the idea for a series called "For The Evil Genius", and McGraw jumped all over it.
The first book in that series was "101 Spy gadgets", which became the best seller for them in that series and several other departments. I started to really believe that it may be possible to just run AZ and write books for a living. I was ecstatic about that idea. Several other books followed, one every 6 months, until we decided to shut down our long established computer service company.
A month later, McGraw sent a lovely legal letter informing us as to how their "new" royalties contract would go. I won't rant too much about it, but the short of it is that we now make about $200 per year on all 6 of these books, including the best seller that was even translated into Chinese.
So if anyone out there is planning to become a technical author for a large company, expect that for every book you write, you will receive $16.50 per year in royalties, and that assumes at least one best seller in the series.
So to be brutally honest, writing those books probably cost me a decent financial future that would exist today if I did not give up the computer business.
Hope that wasn't too harsh... just the truth.
As for the CafePress thing, we just haven't logged into it for so many years as it hadn't had activity for so long.
Not sure if we even have the password anymore, but will check when time allows. Thanks for reminding me of it!
Ok, back to what counts... makin' new stuff!
My welder has been buzzing lately, and I am happy about that.
Newsletter coming in a day or two.
Cheers,
Brad
This is a bit disconcerting, at least for me.
I'm not an expert in the world of commerce, but it makes me wonder why,
'your' not still making money, from 'your' products.