What if you could tip someone, and it cost you nothing?
Stephen H. Provost
What if, instead of calculating 15% or 20% or whatever, you could just put a card on the table that said “good service.” And what if that was just what servers wanted, because the more of these cards they collected, the better it looked to their bosses, and the more likely they were to get a raise.
Unfortunately, tipping doesn’t work like that. People who leave cards on the table at a restaurant are viewed as cheapskates who are actually eating into the income of the server. Tips are viewed as part of their wages by the U.S. government, so their employer can actually give them hourly pay that’s less than the minimum wage — a lot less.
In fact (as of December 2020), employees who receive tips could actually get as little as $2.13 an hour in hourly wages, as long as their tips bring them up to the minimum of $7.25.
And it’s not just restaurant waiters. Tipping can apply to a wide range of service employees to hotel workers to hairdressers, valets to skycaps, cab drivers to baristas. (Don’t try to tip a government worker or police officer, though: It’s illegal and might be considered bribery.)
Tips are taxed in the U.S., because they’re part of wages. Employees have to report them as income, not gifts — even though the word “gratuity” refers to “something given voluntarily or beyond obligation.” Sounds like a gift to me. The IRS assumes that restaurants generate at least 8 percent in tips, and if they report less than this, it’s a red flag to auditors, so if you tip less than 8 percent, it can get problematic.
Other countries are different. Some don’t tax tips, but instead impose a value added tax (VAT) that goes directly to the government, the way a sales tax would. This has always made more sense to me, because the original idea of a tip was a voluntary “thank you” for good service. When it becomes mandatory, or a guilt trip, it kind of negates the entire concept.
But because service workers depend on tips to bridge the gap between the tipped wage of $2.13 and the minimum wage — and because even that isn’t enough to live on — service workers need that money.
No money needed?
Now imagine you had the opportunity to tip a worker who makes less than minimum wage without taking any money out of your pocket. You can’t do that with a restaurant server, but you can do it with another kind of worker who might give you just as much enjoyment, if you like to read.
All you have to do is leave a book review or rating. That’s it. No extra fee, and the books themselves are usually about the price of a meal (sometimes less) anyway. There’s a myth out there that people who have their names on books make a good living. Most of us don’t. Many of us, like restaurant servers, make less than minimum wage, and we don’t get gratuities to make up the difference.
In 2017, median income was just $6,080 for all published authors and $20,300 for full-time authors. That second figure pencils out to $10.15 an hour for 50 weeks of work at 40 hours — less than the current (2020) minimum wage in 16 states and well under the $15 level that fast food workers have been advocating for since 2012. That’s eight years ago.
Some food service workers share their tips with cooks, hosts, and other restaurant employees. In the same way, we authors need to pay editors, cover designers, etc.
Authors count on a different kind of tips — reviews and ratings — to raise the profile of our books and help us make a little more money. The good news is, it doesn’t cost readers a thing to leave this kind of tip.
The bad news, for authors anyway, is twofold. First, they risk getting bad reviews, which can be worse than leaving no tip at all in a restaurant; it’s more like asking to see the manager, and then letting them know how bad your service was. The worst part is, though, that most readers don’t leave reviews at all — or even ratings, which (on Amazon, anyway) just require you to hover over a series of stars and click 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
Easy peasy. But most people don’t do it. Unlike tipping, it’s not part of the culture, which means authors have to go begging for reviews. We ask people at public events, put notices in the back of our books and on our websites. We even pay to sign up for book blog tours and websites like NetGalley that offer reviews... which would be like a waiter paying you to eat at her table just so she could receive a tip. This is what desperation looks like.
So, when it comes right down to it, this post is another plea for reviews. If you’ve liked my books, or any author’s work, please leave a review or a rating, and try to get in the habit of doing so whenever you buy a book, just the way you’d leave a tip at a restaurant. You won’t have to open your wallet, and it won’t cost you anything but a moment of your time.
Believe me, the author you help will be extremely grateful.
