Down the Forest Path has been going for many years now, thanks to the support of all the readers. It is getting increasingly difficult for authors to make a living doing what they do, and so a financial contribution that you can make towards the continuation of this blog would be greatly appreciated. I’ve added a new page to this blog for Contributions/Subscriptions to that effect.

Each post is carefully crafted, providing the content that continues the high standard to which this blog strives each and every day to achieve. It takes a lot of time to keep up this blog, time out from “paid” work, or promotional/administrative work to share with you all insights, information, the highs and lows of everyday life and more.

Leonid Pasternak’s The Passion of Creation

The royalties that most authors make from the sale of their books is a pittance. Sadly, most authors (myself included) are paid net, not gross, and so we only get our 10% after everyone else has taken their cut. That means we don’t get 10% on the RRP noted on the backcover of our books. For some books, it is literally pennies that we get. And now, with the new changes to Amazon’s buy button, we can often not get paid anything at all for the sale of a book. “Other sellers” on Amazon are killing us financially, and if they buy the books direct from the publisher (some do, some don’t) then they can buy them at a greater discount that even the author is afforded (author discount is usually 50% off RRP, other sellers/distributors are offered a starting discount of 60% and often get it for 70% discount from the publishers).

It’s a tough field to work in, that’s for certain. Many artists and musicians are in the same boat, in today’s political and economic climate. We must value the arts as we have in the past, because they are such a huge part of our being, an expression of our souls. If we cannot express or forget this very essential part of our being, what kind of world are we creating? Already the first thing to be cut from school programs are the arts, and it’s a terrible shame. Artists and writers also understand that many people are not able to contribute to the arts, as all money is spent simply getting food on the table and keeping a roof over your head, mostly because they are in the same metaphorical boat.

So, only if you can, please consider subscribing for only £10 a year to the further continuance of this blog, to ensure that it stays around for many more years to come.

May we be the awen.