Cooper West ponderings

Writer’s life: income

Nov 1, 2011 | Income Report, Writing Industry | 4 comments

Another post detailing my financial situation and my earnings as a writer. If that makes you squeamish, turn back now!

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Just got my latest quarterly royalties summary from my publisher (right now, everything is through Dreamspinner Press, although I expect that to change when my M/F/M novels are ready to submit).

Anyway, the bottom line is that the check was for $275.22. For those playing along, that’s well over $100 more than my last quarter. A significant chunk of that was for the newly released book Mixed Signals, which sold 232 copies. This pleases immensely! It had just been released when the quarter started, so it is a pretty good baseline, I think, for measuring future sales of new releases.

I have to admit I was surprised that my other short stories Connections and Room for One both sold five copies each! Connections came out over a year ago, so that’s some kind of small staying power, I think.

My next statement will reflect the sales of my new book, Dawn in the Orchard, but will probably not be for as much money as this check. Why? Because I took a $500 advance for it (generally, you don’t get royalties until the advance has been paid for; it’s not a flat fee type of thing, it’s more like a loan against future earnings). I’m not sure I’ll do that again; given the staying power of ebooks now, I think I’d do better off forgoing the advance for a slightly higher royalty cut. That’s what I’ll ask for, anyway. I’ll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, I’m still working on getting more stories finished. As I recently commented, the key for success, IMHO, is equally shared between quality and quantity. It’s tempting to forego one for the sake of the other, but the balance between the two is crucial if I want to make a real living at this.

The worst part is that I’m just so damn impatient! 😀

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