At the same time, we received our second royalty cheque for Farewell Trip today, covering Jan to March this year. Which is ridiculously exciting for 52 year old previously unpublished authors. It's also the first real chance we've had to see how many actual copies we've sold. And the news is good. Well we think so. It's three times as many as JK Rowling sold for her pseudonymous book before she was “unmasked”, and her publishers deemed that a very good effort for a “debut author.” Carina did a good job getting us promoted, particularly in America.
Of course, as with everything, it came at an expense. In this case, a huge discount, that left us earning pennies per copy. Not least when we have to share royalties. What was I thinking giving away half of my book? So Karin added 80% of the words, most the laughs and all the sex scenes, but for half the money - for fuck's sake. I'm an okay writer but a terrible businessman. I probably could have outsourced it to an overseas call centre for thruppence an orgasm. No imagination, that's my problem...