Real Talk: Four Dollars and Fourteen Cents Closer to the Dream

I made $4.14 today.

That’s not a typo. That’s not me rounding down from a more impressive number. That’s four dollars and fourteen cents, earned through royalties from Kindle Direct Publishing. Someone, somewhere, read one of my stories, maybe liked it, maybe even finished it. And a little digital thank-you found its way into my inbox.

I saw the notification and laughed, not because it was small, but because it was real.

The last time this happened, I wrote a piece titled A Writer’s Thanksgiving. Back then, it was $2.50. I felt like the richest immigrant in California. I poured myself a cup of coffee like it was champagne and sat down to write about how deeply that modest royalty touched me. It was proof I’m on the right track. Wanna know why? Because someone read. Someone clicked. Someone felt something.

And now, here we are again, just under two bucks richer, and somehow, it still feels like a fucking miracle.

But there are things people don’t see. They don’t see me tweaking blog posts at midnight while the rest of the house sleeps. They don’t hear the inner voice whispering, “No one’s reading, cabrón. What’s the point?” They don’t feel the sting of watching friends go viral for dance videos and ass pics while I bleed my soul onto a keyboard and maybe get one share, if the algorithm’s feeling generous.

They don’t see how hard it is to build an audience from nothing, how every reader feels like a rescue. They don’t understand the math of dreams: how $4.14 made through my words means more than $400 from any job I’ve ever clocked into.

And I’ve clocked into a few. McDonald’s. Denny’s. 7-Eleven. Shell. Staples. Casa Azteca. Farmers Insurance. Each one left its mark, like ghost towns in the desert of who I used to be. But none of them ever made me feel the way I do when a stranger buys a story I wrote. That’s not just business. That’s connection.

I used to think the breakthrough would be louder. I thought success would arrive in a tailored suit, with a book deal and a six-figure check in his back pocket. Instead, he showed up today dressed like a spam email:

This $4.14 royalty payment is for your Kindle Direct Publishing sales.

I clicked the link. I stared at the screen. And I smiled. Because I know what it took to get here, that payment is four more reasons to keep going. Four tiny torches in the dark. Four stubborn proof points that my words have a place in this world.

And the best part?

I didn’t buy ads.
I didn’t kiss ass.
I didn’t follow trends or “optimize for SEO.”

I wrote what I felt. I told the truth. I crafted stories from pain, memory, and survival. I talked about my unsuccessful love life and the job I left on the same day I stopped swallowing shit. I turned heartbreak into a metaphor. Turned trauma into prose. I wrote about ghosts, both literal and figurative, because sometimes the dead are easier to talk to than the living.

And somebody out there saw it.

Maybe they were searching for Carrie. Or Love in the Time of Cholera. Maybe they stumbled on The Girl with the Blue Umbrella, or wanted to know what a Mexican kid with a broken laptop had to say about 1984.

Whoever they were, they read something I wrote… and they clicked.

I know it’s not sustainable, at least not yet. I know $4.14 won’t pay rent or buy groceries or fix the growing crack in the windshield of my life. But I’m not here to go viral. I’m here to be seen. Not by everyone. Just by the right ones.

To me, writing is about earning trust slowly, one post at a time, one soul at a time. It’s about giving readers something they didn’t know they needed. It’s about being me, unfiltered and unafraid, even when the world says:

“That’s not marketable.”

To which I say: Neither is dignity.
And I still choose it every damn time.

So here’s my quiet celebration: No cake. No parade. Just me, at the kitchen table again, like when I was a kid in Michoacán, scribbling verses with a blue pen and no idea where they’d take me. I light a metaphorical candle and whisper:

Gracias.

To the reader who clicked.
To the friend who shared.
To the universe for not letting me quit.

And to you, reading this now. You’re part of this story too. You’ve probably read my pieces, or maybe this is your first. Either way, your time matters to me more than you know. And if you ever click a link, buy a book, or just send a kind word my way, I promise you, I feel it. Not like a celebrity feels applause. No. More like a tree feels rain after the drought.

$4.14 closer to the dream. Still broke. Still an immigrant. Still writing.
But goddammit, still here, pen in hand, heart on page.

And for now? That’s enough.