As we get closer to September and the close of this year’s poetry contest, I will post more poems from other artists to help spark creativity.
This year’s theme is Freedom, so we will focus on poems that have to do with that in some way. Here’s a powerful one called “Clothes,” by Kahlil Gibran. Enjoy!
Photo by Uus Supend
And the weaver said, ‘Speak to us of Clothes.’
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say, ‘It is the north wind who has woven the clothes to wear.’
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Due to how the royalties are structured, an author with a 99cent ebook on Amazon will only get about 35 cents per sale. For books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, there is a delivery cost for the ebook file (based on the size) for each book sold.
You also pay Amazon a sales commission based on your royalty rate.
35% royalty: the Amazon sales commission is 65% for books priced below $2.99 and above $9.99
70% royalty: the Amazon sales commission is 30% for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99
What about taxes?
You pay that too.
These are just a few reasons why it can benefit you to sell your book directly to readers from your website.
While I have only made a few dollars in ebook sales from my new book, my print book preorder sales from my website are doing far better, and I am close to making money back from the cover art. By the time the book releases next month, I expect to make back what I paid for editing.
I am going to make this post real short because it’s real simple.
The hard truth is that if you are not selling books through your website or worse, you don’t have an author website, you are leaving money on the table.
While some authors have chosen not to deal with Amazon at all, it’s smart to make sure your book is on Amazon for a few reasons.
To start, Amazon is a giant. To have your book available there is just good sense. People trust Amazon, so some people will look for your book there before they look anywhere else. And with the pandemic, people use Amazon regularly. It’s all about making it easy for your readers, and being able to tell them to go to Amazon isn’t only super cool, but it’s also super easy.
But while Amazon is easily accessible to your readers, the relationship between Amazon and you as the author is a bit different.
There are tons of authors making good money from Amazon, but they are not the majority.
Here is an example from an author about his Amazon royalties:
“One month, I sold 5 paperbacks at a list of 13.99 each. The report stated the manufacturing cost was 5.33 (I assume each), and I’m on the 70% royalty. I got a total of 1.30 cents. That’s 26 cents a book. The next month I sold 1 paperback at 13.99, and I got a 3.13 royalty on it.”
The 2021 Guide to Amazon Fees and Royalties for Kindle eBooks and KDP Print, 2019, Comment Section
This is where your author website comes in to pick up the slack.
What if he had sold five paperback copies of this book from his author website? Since he would have to calculate shipping, let’s just round it up to a cool fifteen dollars per book. That’s $75 in his pocket. If he sells 20 books, that’s $300.
It might not sound like much, but it adds up if he sells books at this rate daily.
Even with website transaction fees, authors can still add more to their bank accounts by having their books on their websites alongside Amazon.
In closing, if you are a Self-Publisher, you can buy your books in bulk and sell them in bulk to companies and corporations like schools and independent bookstores.
Heck, you can sell the books out of the trunk of your car if you want.
The sky is not the limit of what you can do when you control the distribution of your own work.
Considering you are not signed to a publisher or are not restricted to any outside contracts that may otherwise prohibit you, you don’t have to be exclusive to Amazon. Instead, you use Amazon as one of many options.
For digital, you can set your book up on Draft2Digital to distribute it to several digital platforms outside of Amazon. For print, you can set your book up on Amazon KDP but also Ingram Spark for distribution to bookstores and libraries.
When Tina’s nephew, Ronnie is killed, she is left to care for his siblings and to solve a series of mysterious murders involving only black men. Investigating each murder thrusts her and her team into a world of deities, demons, and fallen angels, leading Tina to battle a serial killer beyond this realm.
I am gearing up to release the last book in The Stella Trilogy, The Road to Freedom. After this book drops the series will be complete. Whoo hoo!
But what’s that saying? The real work begins after you release the book? Yea, that.
I don’t know who said it first, but there are no lies told here.
As book three is on its way out, I would like to draw more attention to books one and two by getting some book reviews in. As you guys know, these books were originally published in 2015-2016 but due to major editorial and formatting issues, I have had to take them down and relaunch them. One major risk of taking them down was losing the little reviews the books had. That was a risk I was willing to take if it meant a better reading experience. There are over three thousand followers of this blog. I am hoping I can get a few of you to help.
I just thought I’d ask. What’s that other saying? “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”
If you have read any of these books, it would mean everything if you could review them on amazon. Review book one here. Review book two here.
If you have never read these books and would like to receive an ARC copy, it would delight me to send it to you.
Comment below, contact me through the contact form or email me directly at yecheilyah@yecheilyahysrayl.com.
They get tired of hearing it.
Ain’t nobody got to say it,
I know that they get tired.
Tired of these distractions in brown-colored skin
waking up from Valley’s
with muscles and tendons
all conscious-like.
Uncovering the blood in the American Flag—
Tired, tethered, and intoxicated
with his story.
Unraveling the color of bigotry on a beautiful glass,
Smeared fingerprints and fallen stars like
Why they keep sittin’ in?
Between our comfort and a hard place.
America,
This be some kinda hard place
for brown-colored skin
in the springtime.
Strange fruit popping up again on trees,
‘cept Nina ain’t here to sing us a song.
After 400 years
songs just don’t work anymore.
Tired of these guns accidentally going off,
Landing somewhere in my purse.
somewhere in my womb.
Somewhere in my future between lipstick and foundation.
I’ve got to warn my sons
about accidental guns.
Generational homicide got me on my knees praying
the badge
ain’t got his name on it.
Let’s be accurate about it.
Will I be left with the fragmented
pieces of my husband’s shoes
between our front porch and the living room floor?
Will my kiss linger long enough to bring him home tonight?
Or will I suffer a widow’s fate of mistaken identity?
After all, these brown, tan, bronze, and mahogany-colored
skins all do look the same…
Don’t they?
I’m afraid of your guns.
They don’t know the difference
between friend and foe–
or maybe, they do.
Funny how bullets be mistakin’ themselves for judges
that ain’t got names on them.
They say a gun
ain’t got a name on it.
Why are they sugar-coating it?
‘Cause people get tired of hearing about all this black…
All this oppression,
All these curses,
All this power like,
Why we won’t pour sugar on top of these bodies?
Get ’em up off the street.
Don’t want our bullets to get stirred up, ya know.
Getting up outta beds,
loading themselves into chambers
and taking walks at night,
in the afternoon, and especially in the morning,
when it’s springtime.
Fun Fact: I first wrote this poem four years ago (almost to the day). Reposting because it is still fitting for today’s climate. You can find it in my I am Soul poetry collection.
The PBS Blog 