A Very Big Name author _might_ be able to get away with charging for signatures, but it’s certainly not typical. Most SF cons don’t pay their guests, either — travel, lodging, and meals for the Guest(s) of Honor, but everyone else is on their own. Actors and media figures do often charge appearance fees, which is why one doesn’t see them at most fan-run / book-oriented cons.

I don’t know what cons Steve has made it to lately. When he was in NV, we had him as the very first GoH for Conjecture here in San Diego, and he also attended LosCon up in LA.

I agree she has a point. I don’t agree she didn’t answer your question, because she left it to you to decide if you are destitute. She can’t tell if you told her the truth about your situation.

But I think I can see what some of the problem is. I don’t see any book signings advertised here. How many conventions do you attend? Speak at? Or do you avoid these things for some personal reason? (Rhetorical, I’m not asking to know the reason, only that you consider yours personally.)

There are solutions for a novelist that are not donations. But if you have decided that they are unacceptable, then you have to accept that your books will be poorly advertised, and you will need to learn how to manage your money better. It is not rocket science. It only takes self-control. And giving up things that drain your funds. Or find a way to make them less costly.

Frankly, I think you and Terry Goodkind should tour together. Do Conventions and discuss politics in SF&F. It would be like Hawk and Dove, of Marvel Comics. Except you’d probably wind up hurting each other. Well, that sells tickets, too! But then there is the medical bills…

[...]I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.[...]…

Knives.
Jhereg titles.
So cool.

An undetermined number of people are going to be offended or take exception to just about everything you do…kind of being in the limelight as you are…
If it eases your living and helps you continue your art….do it.

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/

In theory this would allow an author to make money on books twice (such as when a fan comes to their site to find other books), as well as bring in a little extra money for thoughtful recommendations on other authors they respect.

There are plenty of similar ways that an author could monetize a site without “resorting” to begging, as well as drive traffic to their site from others (guest blogging on major sites, etc.).

Back on the “donate” topic, I was just having a conversation with a friend today that from what I’ve read, many authors get a much smaller (or no) cut from ebooks purchased from major retailers. I purchased a physical copy of Iorich for precisely this reason, while he purchased the ebook copy for convenience but promised he would send you an e-mail to see if you made money on it and donate if not.

Good thing you have a donate button.

You know those bits of story you have floating around in the compost pile? The odd parts that you cut for (gods forbid) brevity, or that place where you backed your way into a corner and had to abandon the chapter? The short snatches of dialog, background sketches on bits of history, etc.? The humorous “Day In The Life Of An Urban Jhereg” or “A Picnic With Kragar” that you wrote when you were drunk that time and never did anything with? Yeah, all that stuff. The parts that ended up on the cutting room floor.

Put those in a file, spend half a day fiddling with it to get it organized, and then publish it as a downloadable/print-on-demand .pdf at lulu.com. Sell it for $10 directly to your fans, a kind of “behind the scenes” or “special features” part of your work. Of that $10, you, the artist, gets around $9.50. Cash money via paypal. But you can set the royalty for anything, and if you don’t bother to get an ISDN for it, they don’t report it to the IRS. Not that you shouldn’t, of course, declare all of your income as per your legal obligation to do so, but . . .

Why do this? First, you enrich your audience and feed their greed for your work. Second, because you’re a writer, damn it, and shouldn’t be forced to beg. Not that I’m discouraging you from doing a dontate button — patronage of the arts is a hallowed tradition, after all — but it occurs to me that if you want to delete the guilt you might have, or the reluctance on the part of some to “give” you money for free, then an opportunity to support the artist by purchasing work wherein the majority of the royalty goes directly to the artist does just that. Your fan gets something cool, you get a happier fan who has more stuff to argue on web forums, you get the artistic satisfaction of seeing these timeless gems (or artistic abortions) see the light of day, and, hell, you already wrote it. Might as well get paid for it. Everybody’s happy but your agent and your publisher, bless them, and they can just look at this as a little qusi-promotional side venture that can’t but help keep sales up. You get a couple of hundred extra bucks and a venue for your exploration of Morrolon’s secret transvestism or Sethra’s fatal weakness for kittens or something.

Would we buy it? Hell, yes. I think I speak for many of us when I say the scraps from your table are more filling than half of the crap we buy while we’re waiting for the next Brust novel. If we can help you out directly and get a nifty piece of your work that isn’t technically “canon”, so much the better. I point you to the recent publication of Roger Zelazy’s lost “hard boiled” noir crime novel. I didn’t quibble that there was nothing fantastic about it. I read every word and savored the experience for what it was, an indulgence in good writing. So publish your notes and scraps, and keep the money. I’ve got a couple of books on lulu myself, under a pseudonym, and with little or no promotion I get a small but steady $40-$60 bucks — but I ain’t Steve Brust.

And hell, you already wrote it. Might as well get paid for it.

A): Patronage of artists to afford them the necessary freedom to create has long been part of civilization. I would like to make a comparison and mention that Mozart himself was largely destitute, and died a pauper, yet I consider his works to be superb.

2): Your personal feelings of self worth for asking notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear (to me at least) that you have a large group of friends and fans that care about you and your work. The feelings that we all have won’t be changed just because you have a donate button, or because you are bad an managing money.

iii): You making your living entirely by expressing your creative thoughts through words. And yet, you charge little if anything for it! I have purchased numerous copies of your books over the years (I give them out sometimes as gifts to friends that are avid readers). But your other creative “products” like your daily blog posts, I get access to for nothing. It certainly speaks to your innate generosity. I don’t know enough of the economics of being a writer, but I have to think there might be revenue streams for you to access there.

d): ok just scanned a few later posts…part of me really believes that creative work benefits from not being constrained by financial considerations. Art should not have to be an avocation that an artist can only do in dribs and drabs in their spare time, and also Art should not be solely generated by those wealthy enough to have the available free time to do it. Maybe that’s an unrealistic belief, but eh, I have lots of unrealistic beliefs.