Today, I looked up the royalties I’ve earned from the first month of sales of my first novel, The Contenders.
Drum roll, please!
Bah-da,
bah-da,
bah-da,
bah-da,
bah-da,
tah!
$39.28.
{little dance}
Almost forty dollars!
{pumps fist in air}
Why am I dancing and pumping my fist over such a small amount of money?
Because that’s forty greenbacks for a product of my creativity.
That’s forty George Washingtons for a story that I made up.
Do you realize how incredible that is?
Today is a day for celebrating!
Here’s the breakdown for those of you who like numbers.
July 17 – 31, 2015 Royalties for The Contenders
8 ebooks sold through Amazon.com x $2.07 royalty (list price: $2.99) = $16.56
8 paperbacks sold through CreateSpace x $2.55 royalty (list price: $8.99) = $22.72
Total = $39.28
For you indie authors out there, notice how the royalty for my $2.99 ebook at $2.07 is not far off from the $2.55 royalty for my $8.99 paperback. As many indie authors are proving over time, ebooks are the way to go for generating revenue. Still, I love reading paper books (and so do many readers) and will always offer a printed version of my fiction.
I earned nearly $40 in my first month of sales (really, just two weeks since it was released on July 17th). Who knows what next month and next year and the next four years will bring?
No matter what the totals are, my creative endeavors are now making me dough.
I’M STOKED. {dances and pumps both fists in the air at the same time}
Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel centered on the question, can enemies become friends? She is also the founder of Prelaw Guru, a law school application consulting company, and the author of The No B.S. Guides for prelaw students.
Photo by Talia Felix