It’s funny. We got a call today from our local bookstore. Would we stop by to sign two of our books? A customer had bought them, asked for them to be signed by us, and said she’d stop by later to pick them up and mail them to her relatives in California for Christmas.

We encourage this. We have longstanding agreement with all the stores in driving distance that we’ll do this. We even mention it on our websites so people will order from them. 

So this was a rush. Time was of the essence.

We both had some business to take care of. Conference calls on Denise’s end. More couch-moping on mine. But we packed ourselves into the car and drove downtown.

As we were driving around looking for parking, it hit me: If I had to park my car in the local garage, I’d instantly nullify my profit on these two books. I don’t know I make it any clearer to people who keep telling me that they want to have a book published by a “real” publisher.

Parking = your royalty.

Luckily, we were able to park for free in a loading zone.

Now if the car had been towed…