It's Like A License To Print Money...

Today, I noticed that I'd made my third online sale of a copy of The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile) via the Lulu site. I know who the first sale went to (confirmed by the buyer, shortly after it happened), but have only theories so far as to the identities of the two subsequent purchasers. They could be complete strangers, who searched for Agile books at Lulu and found mine, but more likely are people who've been pointed to the website by me, or by friends and family (or co-workers). I may or may not find out eventually who bought the latest copies.

And that got me thinking... When I make an online sale of the book without having to do anything - I don't have to pay to order the copy originally, I don't have to convince anyone to buy a copy and I don't have to "request" payment from them - it all seems quite magical to me! Today's sale, for example, will net me about $13 in profit, despite me not doing anything beyond writing and publishing the book way back when! In theory, I could still be making money through online sales of the book weeks, months or even years from now! Imagine being a famous author, like a Stephen King, Michael Crichton or Neil Gaiman, and having royalty cheques coming in for the rest of your life for things you'd written decades earlier! What a concept!

I think the reason such a thing seems so revolutionary to me is that I've always only made money in a more direct and limited fashion. I do something, and I get paid for it. Once! Even selling comics on eBay, when I was doing that, was a 1-for-1 deal: this item sells once, and makes me that much money. The notion of producing something once, and then (in theory) making money off of it again and again and again is just... really cool! Even if I only ever make dozens of dollars, instead of the millions that others may make, it's still really cool!

It's almost enough to make me want to be a writer for real!