Why I finally put my books on Amazon.

And, the lessons you can learn from people-watching at coffee shops. I wonder, from time to time, if these high ceilings leave any room for living. Psst... if you don't have a lot of time and are just here to read about why I finally put my books on Amazon, skip to the next section titled "F*ck Jeff Bezos, kind of". But, if you're not in a hurry, we will get to all of that eventually... A coffee shop on a Sunday is a curious place to be. Most especially if you're alone. It's curious because it means that on a day when society and neighbors and biblical texts and even employers grant you permission to take rest, you're doing nothing of the sort. One might arrive at a coffee shop on a Sunday with every good intention of not doing something ambitious and one always finds oneself not abiding by this good intention; for coffeeshops are perfectly fine places to dream and create and write and wonder what life could be. If I'm telling truths, I began this piece not knowing where exactly I was writing to. I still don't know for certain. But, as I flick sentences from my fingers like the wet color from an abstract painter's brush, this piece is beginning to take form. Or, at least it soon will. Writing is like painting in this way. When I can't write, which simply means that I can't decide what to write, I take the unspoken advice of the painter and I put ink to paper. Five, six, seven evenings ago, I was drinking wine and drawing and painting with my girl, who is quite possibly the most creative individual I know, the type of creative individual that leaves a creative individual like me feeling a bit insecure. And, as she stood in front of her canvas holding her dry brush right beside a palette full of color, she said so beautifully... "I know it sounds cliche but the hardest thing about painting is placing your brush on the canvas." I stopped drawing what I was drawing –– a horse intended to be a horse that, unfortunately, took the shape of a donkey –– and I made a mental note to take what she had said and put it in some filing cabinet in my mind to pull from and write about later on. This is later on. So, when you can't write, you first do as the painter does and you do the hardest thing there is: you put pen to paper. After this, you look up and you look around. Right now, sitting in this coffee shop, looking up and looking around, this is what I see: I see nobody reading Jane Austen. I do, however, see an African American gentleman sporting a crimson button-down and a pair of leather loafers that have the tired look of having been worn a long time. He's staring very seriously at his laptop, his eyebrows bunching up the skin between them like the folds in a heavy window curtain. Every now and again he will pound away like an angry pianist at the iPad lying beside his laptop. It appears that he's doing math. It appears that he works in finance. It appears he's counting money. It appears he's calculating how to make more money. He looks the part. He looks like a rich man. But, that fold of skin between his eyebrow gives away a truth (and since we are telling truths): he doesn't feel he is rich enough. Sitting to his left (and my right) is a fair-skinned African American Woman. (Looking at that line, I can't decide if I should more readily reach for "light-skinned" versus "fair-skinned" for while "fair-skinned" reads a bit prettier than "light-skinned", at least on the page, it gives this notion that to be light of complexion is "fair" and to be dark of complexion is "unfair" –– an essay for another day, perhaps.) She has more hair than I've ever seen atop someone's head, hair that takes off, willy nilly, like the falling limbs and leaves of a Willow Tree. She leaves it untethered while she reads a gorgeous book the color of a Macaw and jots down thoughts in a journal the color of a Magpie. Once she feels she has emptied the well, she ties the willow up and into something tight and once secure, she begins knitting. She seems to be the only person in the coffee shop not dead set on taking over the world. If the financier to her right (my left) were to watch her exist for but a few moments, he'd discover something the numbers weren't showing him: that being rich is about having enough money to buy experiences while having a bit leftover to stow away so that you can enjoy these experiences without the lingering concern that you won't be able to pay the rent. As I watch these two, I'm realizing that I'm the space between them. I'm a lightning bug throwing himself back and forth against the invisible walls of the jar that are their shoulders. Some days, I want the whole world or nothing at all. I want to dance in and out of writing genres with the ease and grace and ferocity of some jaguar that can't be kept and I want to be paid handsomely for this dancing and I want to take my handsome purse and spend it on fast cars and fine drink and suits that give the appearance that I am somebody. I am somebody. Pray tell me I'm somebody? Other days, I want to climb into my $8,600 '89 Range Rover with its peeling paint and chirps and hums and violent squeaks that could kill a symphony. I want to watch June leap into the backseat and be surprised by how, with each passing day, she seems to be growing more and more athletic. I want to grab a cup of coffee, enough to get me 100 miles down the road and perhaps 100 miles more. And, I want to leave my ambitions behind me. While there is so much room for dreaming inside these coffee shops. I do wonder, from time to time, if these high ceilings leave any room for living; knitting. But, I digress. By [Cole Schafer](. [I can't stop chasing Hemingway.]( Fuck Jeff Bezos, kind of. To date, I've been adamant about selling my books of poetry and prose in one place and one place only... through Honey Copy. The idea was that by limiting the number of places readers could get their hands on my books, I'd be able to take full creative control of my packaging and, ultimately, the reader's experience; while also creating a feeling of scarcity. My thinking was successful, for the most part. To date, [After Her]( [One Minute, Please?]( and Quarantine Dreams have done $22,698 in sales. Unfortunately, very little of that ends up in my pocket because 1). each book costs me $5 to print, 2). shipping ain't cheap and 3). I've overspent in the creation of their design and their marketing. So, my actual profit from the above books looks something more like 30%-40% of that number. This is still much better margins than going the traditional publishing route, mind you, but after several years of hustling my books, I've realized that if I ever want this to become a meaningful stream of income for me, I have to figure out a way to move more copies. While scarcity and luxury work when you're selling $1,000+ products, this strategy isn't as effective when you're selling $25 products. I also had to face the fact that as much as I despise Amazon, I buy all of my books from there. Why? Because they have the widest selection and the fastest most reliable shipping in the world. With that said, I recently had my printers list my books on Amazon. The first month on there, the pair sold 160 copies. Not bad. However, there was some miscommunication. We fucked up the pricing and while through Honey Copy they go for $25/ book. On Amazon, they are listed for $20/ book. We're in the process of changing this. But, if I were you, I'd take advantage of it in the meantime. You can pick up ["One Minute, Please?" here](. You can pick up ["After Her" here](. Also, if you like the book, it would mean the world to me if you gave it a review (and encouraged others to pick up a copy or two). Good reviews work wonders for indie writers like me looking to compete with big named writers backed by deep-pocketed ad budgets and publishing houses. [Damn you, Bezos.]( If poetry isn't your cup of tea... If poetry isn't your thing, here are some less poetic goodies you might like... [Chasing Hemingway]( ($10), a newsletter about writing and life and how the two exist so magically together. [Snow Cones]( ($97), a short afternoon-sized guide that will teach you how to write words that sell like a Florida Snow Cone Vendor on the hottest day of the year. [$100k]( ($97), the same afternoon-sized guide as Snow Cones but about freelancing and how you can make money doing the stuff you're good at for others. Finally, if you're short on dough this month, you can always follow me on [Twitter]( or [Instagram]( or [my blog]( where I regularly sling-ink (for free). [Tips are alsa appreciated (!!!)]( A reminder to myself of who I don't want to be... I’ve never read a James Patterson book. I have no desire to. Where writing is concerned, he stands for everything that I stand against. In many ways… I despise him. But, at the same time, I’m strangely fascinated by him. Patterson has a writing process that feels less like that of a writer and more like something akin to a “writer’s room”. He doesn’t write alone. One might argue he hasn’t written alone since his early works of fiction, back when he wrote on the side of his “day job” as the CEO & Creative Director of J. Walter Thompson’s North American Branch (a wildly impressive position for those unfamiliar with agency-level advertising). After walking away from advertising in the mid-90s and going all-in on writing and publishing mainstream fiction, today he works with a couple dozen credited ghostwriters, where collectively they churn out dozens of books every single year. Touch the black button down below to read the rest of his story... [Don't sell your soul, Cole.]( P.S. If this newsletter made you weak in the knees, you can share it with the world by selecting one of the four icons down below... [Send it.]( [Send it.]( [Tweet it.]( [Tweet it.]( [Share it.]( [Share it.]( [Post it.]( [Post it.]( Copyright © 2021 Honey Copy, All rights reserved. A while back you opted into a weekly email called "Sticky Notes". Remember? If not, you can always unsubscribe below... and risk breaking this writer's heart. Our mailing address is: Honey Copy 3116 N. Central Park Unit #1Chicago, IL 60618 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? 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