#IWSG: Who Gets the Profit?

It's the first Wednesday of the month again already, and time for my IWSG post! I'm excited to be a co-host again this month!

 

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds (and come on, we're all insecure in some way)!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

 

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

 

The awesome co-hosts for the July 1 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray and yours truly! 

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. 

Remember, the question is optional! 
July 1 question - Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

 

 

My initial reaction to this month's question was that I don't know enough to have an opinion about the publishing industry. Then I realized that in my own small way, I'm working on changing it a bit. What else is my personal ebook store on Buy Me a Coffee, if not an effort to shift the industry's profits from Amazon to the author (i.e., me)? That's how I've been selling it when I hand out my bookmarks with the QR code link--and no one has indicated they think that's a bad idea. Around here, people are all in favor of me getting the profit, not Amazon. (Someone even used the link and bought some books a couple of weeks ago!).

 

So here's what I want changed: I want the creators, the writers, to get more of the profit. At the moment, my approach to fixing this is to sell my paperbacks directly to the public at festivals and markets. This leads to my...

 

Writer's Update

I've been putting in a fair bit of time at local markets and events, hand-selling my books. This is teaching me some things: what covers appeal to viewers, how to tailor my elevator pitch to my audience (and how to improve it in general), and how much I hate heat (two of the last three weekends have been miserably hot, though this past Saturday was both cooler and indoors).

 

Besides selling books, I'm still working on the next installment in Seffi Wardwell's adventures. Thank goodness I'd already decided to hold my release of this one until November, because I've concluded that the ending needs some major reworking, forcing a re-write from about the 2/3 point (see last Wednesday's post). That's still under way.

 

No submissions, no responses to outstanding submissions.

 

We are making progress on a cover for the new book, and I think you're going to like it. I'm also working on the blurb. So far, it's as follows. Please feel free to leave comments on what could be better! 

 

The logger's been cut down at the library!

Seffi Wardwell is keeping busy volunteering at the library, learning the local history along with the flora and fauna, and planning the garden she’ll plant once spring really comes to the coast of Maine. When the head librarian is rushed to the hospital, Seffi ups her game to keep the library open. When a visiting professor asks her to come work with her students, visiting the local nature reserve on a biology field trip, Seffi jumps at the chance to be a science teacher once more. Soon she’s up to her eyeballs in work.

 

Then she finds the corpse.

 

Someone in Smelt Point has committed murder, and as usual, Seffi can’t stop herself from joining in the hunt to figure out who and why. This time, it may take all her knowledge, of plants and humans alike, to find the answer before the killer strikes again.

 

 

Gratuitous photo and a PSA 

This is a picture of a pretty meadow--and a decaying mylar balloon, which has blown in from who knows were, because those things really travel. Eventually balloons come down--including in wilderness areas--and begin to decay into microplastics. This was was already breaking up when I carefully gathered it into a plastic bag, and left many little tiny bits scattered forever in that meadow.

 

 

☕Buy me a coffee--or get my ebooks

 

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026 

As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.


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