House Mountain Views
Books, blog posts, and podcasts by Jim Hartsell
My Masochistic Ritual
I was performing my regular masochistic ritual of checking my book sales earlier today and when I pulled up my Amazon author’s page, I found this listing for my first children’s book, “The Mountain Climber” (note the price):
The background details are more than a little convoluted, but this particular book is in limbo right now and two days ago was listed (correctly) as out of print. When I checked a couple of minutes ago it was back to that listing, so either someone who had a used copy sold it and made more money with one sale than I have in my entire writing career, or Amazon discovered a scam and removed it.
In any case, I had the momentary experience of having one of my books, an out of print children’s book from several years ago, listed at an exorbitant price on Amazon. In a way, I hope the seller was legit and found a buyer with lots of disposable income. I write because I love it and for the occasional pleasure of having a reader tell me how much they enjoyed my work; if someone could score a windfall of that size from a $15 book, I applaud their entrepeneurship and incredible stroke of luck.
Not that I would turn down a percentage if it were offered.
