...or so the song goes. In our experience, love and family and conservation of angular momentum is every bit as important but that's not what we're talking about today. Today, we're talking about money.
Our money, to be more specific. Yes, it's crass to talk cash. Still, we said the same thing a few months ago then went ahead and talked about money, anyway, so what does that say about us?
On some level, it says we're professional writers. Maybe we hang with a crass crowd but they seem quite comfortable talking about their cash flow. When we speak with other writers, people we know on any kind of personal level, the conversation inevitably swings to (a) sales (b) royalties (c) contracts (d) money. Oh, and how are the kids?
The kids are doing well, thanks for asking. We plan to do some serious bragging in the very near future so please return to this space.
As far as money? Just days ago, Amazon sent us a pair of lovely royalties checks -- one for its US arm, one for Amazon EU. Combined, this was the largest number of dollars we'd received since going the self-published route. Since Amazon pays a couple of months after sales have been recorded, we anticipate receiving some decent checks over the next couple of months, too. Sadly, this bump in sales isn't seen under the "Renée Harrell" semi-pseudonym. All of our favorite novels, Aly's Luck, The Atheist's Daughter and Something Wicked, are struggling to find an audience.
In fact, 'Wicked' was on life support before we did a rewrite and plugged it into KDP Select. We did our first two-day KDP giveaway in true lame ass style (failing to share that we were doing a giveaway but only because we forgot), our lack of effort resulting in a new positive review and a single additional sale. Determined to do better the next time, we hired eBook Booster to find promo sites for SW on its second and last, three-day giveaway. Initially, it seemed to help, as the novel was listed on a half-dozen different sites. Almost magically, we remembered to plug the second giveaway on this website, too.
At the end of the three day “sale”, ‘Wicked’ ended up #2 in Amazon's YA Mystery/Thrillers and #2 in its YA Paranormal. The ratings were nice but the number of total downloads wasn’t impressive. For the first two-day handout, when we did nothing at all, we gave away 656 copies. With eBook Booster’s assistance, over a three-day period, we sent out all of 752 copies. Still, we collected another nice review (thank you, Jamie, whoever you are) and sold three copies of the novel.
Financially, this was not a win.
But we can't be too grumpy. Some of our other work is finding a readership and, for now, that's going to have to satisfy us. If you're wondering what we're going to do with our royalty windfall, well, it wasn't THAT much; it was just several times better than our usual monthly collection. So, tomorrow, we're going shopping for people.
That's right -- Kiva, here we come! But first things first: Next week, we're talking about family.
Can't wait to see: Cockneys Vs Zombies. It never showed up at the local theater but, in the States, its being released on DVD today. 69% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and possibly stupid. We love stupid.
Reading: Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. If we could write as well as Hiaasen, that's all we'd do. Do you hear us, C. Hiaasen? Back to the word processor for you!
Quote o' the day: "A guy will say, 'Well, I make my luck.' And the same guy walks down the street and a piano that's been hoisted drops on his head. The truth of the matter is your life is very much out of your control." -- Woody Allen
Our money, to be more specific. Yes, it's crass to talk cash. Still, we said the same thing a few months ago then went ahead and talked about money, anyway, so what does that say about us?
On some level, it says we're professional writers. Maybe we hang with a crass crowd but they seem quite comfortable talking about their cash flow. When we speak with other writers, people we know on any kind of personal level, the conversation inevitably swings to (a) sales (b) royalties (c) contracts (d) money. Oh, and how are the kids?
The kids are doing well, thanks for asking. We plan to do some serious bragging in the very near future so please return to this space.
As far as money? Just days ago, Amazon sent us a pair of lovely royalties checks -- one for its US arm, one for Amazon EU. Combined, this was the largest number of dollars we'd received since going the self-published route. Since Amazon pays a couple of months after sales have been recorded, we anticipate receiving some decent checks over the next couple of months, too. Sadly, this bump in sales isn't seen under the "Renée Harrell" semi-pseudonym. All of our favorite novels, Aly's Luck, The Atheist's Daughter and Something Wicked, are struggling to find an audience.
In fact, 'Wicked' was on life support before we did a rewrite and plugged it into KDP Select. We did our first two-day KDP giveaway in true lame ass style (failing to share that we were doing a giveaway but only because we forgot), our lack of effort resulting in a new positive review and a single additional sale. Determined to do better the next time, we hired eBook Booster to find promo sites for SW on its second and last, three-day giveaway. Initially, it seemed to help, as the novel was listed on a half-dozen different sites. Almost magically, we remembered to plug the second giveaway on this website, too.
At the end of the three day “sale”, ‘Wicked’ ended up #2 in Amazon's YA Mystery/Thrillers and #2 in its YA Paranormal. The ratings were nice but the number of total downloads wasn’t impressive. For the first two-day handout, when we did nothing at all, we gave away 656 copies. With eBook Booster’s assistance, over a three-day period, we sent out all of 752 copies. Still, we collected another nice review (thank you, Jamie, whoever you are) and sold three copies of the novel.
Financially, this was not a win.
But we can't be too grumpy. Some of our other work is finding a readership and, for now, that's going to have to satisfy us. If you're wondering what we're going to do with our royalty windfall, well, it wasn't THAT much; it was just several times better than our usual monthly collection. So, tomorrow, we're going shopping for people.
That's right -- Kiva, here we come! But first things first: Next week, we're talking about family.
Can't wait to see: Cockneys Vs Zombies. It never showed up at the local theater but, in the States, its being released on DVD today. 69% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and possibly stupid. We love stupid.
Reading: Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. If we could write as well as Hiaasen, that's all we'd do. Do you hear us, C. Hiaasen? Back to the word processor for you!
Quote o' the day: "A guy will say, 'Well, I make my luck.' And the same guy walks down the street and a piano that's been hoisted drops on his head. The truth of the matter is your life is very much out of your control." -- Woody Allen
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