Trump robbed of ill-gotten gains (or Trump shady money laundering business)

Crime alert! Best-selling author and American Presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump has been robbed of royalties from a Barnes & Noble purchase totaling $55,055 on May 10, 2016. That is right--the royalties from over 3,500 copies of the hardcover version of Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, or from over 5000 copies of the renamed paperback, Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America--have been robbed from Trump. The purchase was made by the Trump campaign to put the best book ever (better than the Bible) into the prize/goodie bags at the National Republican Convention.

It is just a great big shame that people think that they can get away with robbing Trump. Not only is he robbed of royalties, that lying hussy Hillary Clinton, who lies so much that she has to be a Terrorist Mexican Muslim, plans on trying to rob him of the election. The next thing you know Mexico is going to rob him of payments for the wall they are going to build to keep themselves out of America.

The alleged robber, the Federal Election Commission, justified the robbery by saying that Trump has so much money, he won't notice the loss of....however much royalties he would have gotten from a $55,055 sale....which is more than one dollar, and probably less than $55,055 (see how good we are with math--just wait until you see us examine Trump's tax returns). To add insult to injury, the FEC said that “It’s fine for a candidate’s book to be purchased by his committee, but it’s impermissible to receive royalties from the publisher. That amounts to an illegal conversion of campaign funds to personal use. There’s a well established precedent from the FEC that funds from the campaign account can’t end up in your own pocket.”

Oh, wait...Trump might not be the victim here...here is Mad Uncle Morgan with the latest update.

Orange Again--How to Fix White America--Cheeto-Faced Ferret Wearing Shitgibbon

In a blatant bid to be the only Presidential candidate ever to make money during a Presidential campaign, rather than after it--like all the other poor candidates do--Donald Trump turned a blind eye to his campaign spending $55,055 at a Barnes & Noble on May 10. At no point were the words "money laundering" uttered by a Cheeto-Faced Ferret Wearing Shitgibbon, which is rather odd given that this was either a failed attempt to do so, or a rather ham-handed attempt to get the book back onto the best-seller lists.

One assumes that the publisher would have given the campaign discounted copies of the book, perhaps even some free copies. One also assumes that Trump had already brought his required number of copies; but given his long-held habit of not paying his bills with his own money, it might have been a wild attempt to get proof copies into the hands of unemployed monkeys.

(Yes, that is right, famous celebrities are required by publishers to buy their own proof copies and farm out the work of proofing to any random friend or customer that they can corner--it is how big book publishers justify not using their own editors, who typically threaten to throw famous authors out of the thirteenth story window rather than having to actually read the dribble that your typical celebrity thinks is interesting and/or earth-shaking. After a famous author fails to corner enough humans to edit their book, they typically farm the job out to thousands of random monkeys for bananas on the dollar. The principle is that a thousand monkeys randomly doodling with red ink equals the amount of work that one depressed over-caffeinated editor can do.) 

In his defense, the shitgibbon declared his opponent, Lying Hillary Clinton, "a grifter" which campaign is nothing more than a "scam." (Please note that these words have been used by Trump at some point in his campaign, and we are just using the Fox News principle of "Any words spoken by a politician can be used at any time in connection with any news story because the American people are too dumb to fact-check things before they share them on Facebook.")

And now for a closing word from our sponsor: "Remember to vote Orange in 2016--otherwise, some woman is going to continue using the policies of the 2010s, instead of the 1950s political policies that made this country white great. I make great political decisions, and my policies will be the best. I only consult with the smartest people when I need to make a decision. Mainly myself. I consult with myself a lot. Because I am really smart. Consulting sounds so much better than saying that I talk to myself. Orange 2016!"

Future is so bright I gotta wear shades

Last night, I was trying to explain how writers make money through royalities to my wife. I might have had an easier time eplaining nuclear physics to her. In particular, I was trying to describe what I was doing on Smashwords, and why I suspected that in the long run I would hit the break-even point on some (if not all) of my writing there.

Midway through the conversation, I realized that my wife did not even understand the concept behind book advances. For the one person in the audience who has only been involved in the modern world of ebook publishing, an advance was something that publishers used to give to writers...it is still possible to get an advance today, provided that you are someone like Stephen King, who is guaranteed to sell copies even if one's writing bores the general public to tears and one's ideas are lifted from other writers.

My wife was not even aware that book advances had to be earned back before a writer got more money from the publishers, much like she did not realize that some writers took fifteen years to get their first book contract and that it can take three years to get your book onto store shelves.

(Gee, why do some of us decide that ebook through self-publication outlets are a better option---getting published by a Big Six legacy publishers sounds so quick and easy; you will be raking in the money before you die.)

Of course, I understand her concerns. She would like me to be making money (as getting a paycheck) tomorrow, rather than a quarter or three down the road. Again, for the newbie in the audience, even on a self-pub site like Smashwords, it can take awhile to get cut a check; it takes a calendar quarter for the distributors (iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, etc.) to send their sales figures to Smashwords, who in turn waits to pay you when the next quarter ends (plus thirty days)---nevertheless, it is still more timely than the print market was.

Anyways, I digress. The important part is that I can foresee making my time investment back (provided that the initial figures are a true indication of how well I am going to do). In fact, I may even make a nice little profit. That means that the future is a little brighter; I might have to invest in a new pair of sunglasses.

For those who are curious what I am doing on Smashwords, you can download a free copy of some my work. The rest of you can just sit here and watch the following video by Timbuk 3: The Future's So Bright.