Originally posted on April 20, 2020 at https://ailovestogrow.wixsite.com/mysite/post/first-royalties
Definitely a milestone, getting paid for my book. And my feelings are...jumbled.
For those in the dark, Amazon takes two months to get their act together for authors. This makes sense to me, there's a lot of setup that goes into putting something on the market. At least on my end, it has been exhausting, I can only imagine how it is for Amazon. And I have been checking each day my rankings, and they fluxuate between 90-190 thousand. However, I was looking at the wrong menu, the actual sales charts only unlocked today.
It isn't...I'm very happy that I have any audience. I came into this with zero expectations and while the response to my book hasn't been ALL chocolate and praise, it HAS been heartwarming to see that I've managed to touch a few people's lives. I've done it, I'm an author, I fulfilled one of my life's dreams.
So why do I feel so depressed?
Not only am I getting my first royalty checks this week, but I finally got to see how many sales I've made and how many pages have been read. Currently, there are 72 sold copies of my book. For a brief time, I offered the book for free as a kind of way to boost the number of reviews for my book, and that "sold" 157 copies. Then, the total number of KENP - Kindle book pages read through the KU program - is 72,200 pages or the equivalent of around 120 copies of my book. I'm actually a little happier with that number, but I only get some money from there instead of a full sale.
Whisper Of The Heart is one of my favorite movies. This girl writes her heart out and gets the rough draft done of her novel and then at the end gets told its ok, that it isn't completely awful, that its a good first attempt. I KNEW this was my first novel, I KNOW I shouldn't have expected more, but I DID! How could I not? I wrote out everything, I've anguished over little details, I actually cried when Editor-kun came back and told me I had to cut around 20,000 words from my first draft. I'm not some teenage girl, I'm in my thirties! I am an adult and adults should look at things with maturity and realism.
I'm in the middle of Chapter 13, building up to some parts I really wanted to write about, and here I am wondering why I'm working so hard for a sequel that may only get me a couple of sales and be read by maybe a few hundred people. It's childish, it only looks at the sales of a single book that has been out for 2 months, it is a very niche genre inside of a niche genre that can't advertise in the same way literally every other genre can. I should finish the trilogy and look at all the numbers as they add up over a year. I'm going to look back at this and laugh from atop my bed of money a year from now!
Right now, though, it looks a lot like very few people want to read my book or review my book. Thank you, everyone, that HAS taken a chance on me and joined Honoka and the wives, you make my life brighter and keep me out of the dark places.
I don't expect many people to read this. There's a view counter on the page and it is clear I'm the only one here. If anyone does get here, can you tell me what I did wrong? I know I'm weird and my fetishes are extreme, but I thought my book was funny and sexy. Should I have just written something like everyone else and been satisfied?
I know what you are thinking: who cares about the girl in the corner writing smut? Poor little porny writer! If you wrote an actual novel, you'd have all the readers you could ever ask for. Nevermind she spent 20 years writing and writing and writing and never finishing anything. She should have tried harder! Dreams don't matter!
Am I a bad writer?
Sorry. I'm...not doing ok right now. I think I mentioned I'm more like Honoka than I'll ever admit to family. Take of that what you will. I'll...well, I'll get back to you later.
No comments:
Post a Comment