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royalty statements, and filthy lucre
Sep. 27th, 2008 03:06 pmAnd it's that time of the month when I get to see whether people like my writing enough to shell out hard cash for it...
The good news is that five weeks after release, L&M2 has made more than RWA PAN minimum royalties ($1000). This makes me a happy author, if very definitely a small press author. And comparing with the equivalent figures on the first book in the series, the series loyalty from readers is looking extremely good. There's also a clear spike in backlist sales on the first book.
This is also good news for fans of the series, because it means that it is worth my while to write the third book, and worth my editor's while to say "Yes, Jules, go ahead and write it" instead of gently suggesting that I should turn my attention to another project that might be more commercially viable.
There *are* other potential projects. This is the nature of writing, that there are always more ideas than time to write them. It's a matter of picking the most appropriate ones for what I want to do with my writing career, and even though I'm content enough to be a small press writer, commercial considerations still come into play. I'm not going to turn out hack work to make a quick buck, because I don't get paid enough to bother writing anything at all unless it's something that I *want* to write. But I do want to reach an audience, and the best way to do that is to write a good selection of commercially viable stories that make money for me and for my publisher. It's a lot easier to find people who'll read the out-there stuff if I already have a built-in audience from my more mainstream material.
So, time to consider the ideas queue, and do some planning for the next year or so's writing...
The good news is that five weeks after release, L&M2 has made more than RWA PAN minimum royalties ($1000). This makes me a happy author, if very definitely a small press author. And comparing with the equivalent figures on the first book in the series, the series loyalty from readers is looking extremely good. There's also a clear spike in backlist sales on the first book.
This is also good news for fans of the series, because it means that it is worth my while to write the third book, and worth my editor's while to say "Yes, Jules, go ahead and write it" instead of gently suggesting that I should turn my attention to another project that might be more commercially viable.
There *are* other potential projects. This is the nature of writing, that there are always more ideas than time to write them. It's a matter of picking the most appropriate ones for what I want to do with my writing career, and even though I'm content enough to be a small press writer, commercial considerations still come into play. I'm not going to turn out hack work to make a quick buck, because I don't get paid enough to bother writing anything at all unless it's something that I *want* to write. But I do want to reach an audience, and the best way to do that is to write a good selection of commercially viable stories that make money for me and for my publisher. It's a lot easier to find people who'll read the out-there stuff if I already have a built-in audience from my more mainstream material.
So, time to consider the ideas queue, and do some planning for the next year or so's writing...