by Jay Hartman
Many years ago when we first started out, one of our authors experienced a horrible situation where her home caught fire. With so much loss, we decided to donate all the net proceeds from the sales of the author’s title directly to her. It may not have added up to a ton of money, but every little bit helped her get back on her feet.
Since then we’ve published numerous other works with a charitable component to them. The Beat of Black Wings has a portion of proceeds go to The Brain Aneurysm Foundation. Only the Good Die Young benefits The Billy Joel Foundation. We launched a new initiative around our title, Happiness is Listening to Your Dog Snore, which enables rescue organizations around the world to earn money from every paperback copy sold through our site. They can also purchase copies at a discount for their own fundraising efforts.
Charitable causes in publishing are certainly nothing new. The publishing industry always tried to find ways to give back. Plus creative folks, such as authors, tend to have really big hearts. It’s one of the reasons I love this industry.
Adding a charitable component to your publishing accomplishes several different but important goals:
Important things to keep in mind if you choose to pursue a charity component to your work:
Giving back is a terrific feeling, and if you find yourself able to introduce a charity component to your publishing efforts, you’ll experience the feeling yourself. Remember: charity starts at home! Like putting on an oxygen mask on an airplane in case of a sudden change of cabin pressure, you need to make sure you have yourself covered before you attempt to help your neighbor. If you believe it’s within your means, jump in and see all the good your writing accomplishes.
Jay A. Hartman, editor-in-chief at Untreed Reads Publishing, founded Untreed Reads to promote ebooks with an emphasis on independent authors and publishers. He’s written about the ebook industry for fifteen years and previously served as content editor for KnowBetter.com, one of the internet’s oldest sites reporting on ebooks and epublishing.
