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faerie blood

Faerie Blood, Publishing

Never mind Amazon vs. Macmillan, let's talk authors!

So the whole Amazon vs. Macmillan fracas has accomplished three things for me, as of last night:

One, I have bought a nook. The cost of said nook as well as a loverly cover to put it in is roughly about the same as the amount of royalties I have now received for Faerie Blood, and to a tiny degree, Defiance.

(Which of course means that this is the Nook That Faerie Blood Bought, folks. That you all helped me buy. And for this, I thank you all! Watch this space for a forthcoming new poll on what exactly I should name the Nook, and a likely giveaway for a randomly selected winner!)

Two, I’ve also bought five, count ’em, five ebooks by Macmillan authors, up on Fictionwise.

Three, and because I’m really in the mood to show some love directly to awesome authors, I have thrown ten bucks at the current efforts of to sell her commissioned novella “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”. It’s set in her Old Races universe and features Janx and Daisani, and she’s selling it directly off her site for ten bucks a pop this month. Hie ye over here and show her some support, y’all!

“But Anna,” I hear you cry, “ten bucks a pop for a novella? Isn’t that more than I’d be paying for a paperback?” Yes. Yes it is. But the beauty of this is, since Kit is selling it directly, she gets every last penny, and since she has an established track record of about a dozen books’ worth of awesome, I’m pretty damn sure $10 for a novella full of her words will be worth the price.

Also, she’s Kit. So go, my Internet armies! And tell her I sent you!

February 2, 2010 by
Defiance, Faerie Blood, Mirror's Gate

There goes my amateur standing

Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to report that as of this evening, I have received royalties for my writing for the very first time in my writing career. Actual money for my actual words is now in my possession. It ain’t much, I grant you–I am, after all, a micropress ebook author–but it’s evidence that somebody out there has in fact cared to put down a few of their dollars in exchange for my work.

Roughly 217 somebodies, in fact. If you’re one of those 217 or so, I thank you wholeheartedly and hope you’ll have enjoyed what I provided. Most of these sales are indeed Faerie Blood, although Defiance does have a tiny blip of presence on the statement. Also, it is a point of interest that the reported sales are for Drollerie Press’s own site, Fictionwise (by far the majority of the sales), and Mobipocket. Amazon sales are not represented and hopefully this will be updated as of the next statement received. Clearly, though, Fictionwise loves me. <3

There are more words on the way! And tonight's addition to that "more", tapped out on the iPhone at Conflikt while listening to the inimitable Alexander James Adams belting out his best (and then more typed after), was a few hundred more words into Chapter 1 of Mirror’s Gate. I know now that the lead characters are Aleksandr and Yevanya Morokev, and that Yevanya’s cousin who’d really like nothing better than to step into the esteemed position of “husband” with her is Antoli. The names are of course Russian-influenced, although I’ll be playing around with this some and thinking about how the elves of Vreyland would have affected the language and the naming conventions. Plus, I just want to throw in a few character names that aren’t direct real-world analogues.

Tonight’s efforts got paused though as I got to a point where I need to mention the name of the city serving as the primary setting here, and I’m not sure yet whether I want a short terse name or a long exotic one. Spent some time mulling the list on Wikipedia of Russian cities, but so far none of them have served as inspiration for naming the Vreyish capital. Potential elven influence may be called for here.

Written tonight: 316
Chapter 1 total: 546
Mirror’s Gate total: 546

January 30, 2010 by
Drollerie Press, Faerie Blood

Drollerie Press giveaway, and also, a bit of sales data!

So over at Drollerie Press we’re in the middle of a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway, featuring several free downloads by a lot of us DP authors–and which will culminate in the giveaway of a free ebook reader a bunch of us are chipping in for! It’s a jetBook Lite, and you can find out more about it and the giveaway in general here. Skim all the site’s recent entries for the downloads available so far!

Meanwhile, I’ve finally gotten a bit of sales data from my editor , who informs me that during 3rd Quarter 2009, I sold 148 copies at Fictionwise! This means I now have 165 confirmed sales so far–and this isn’t counting anything from Mobipocket or Amazon or other sites, not to mention Drollerie’s own store during that period. So when the royalty statement finally shows up, I’m hopeful it’ll have some interesting numbers indeed.

For the home audience–this means that by very rough estimation, I’d be getting somewhere in the vicinity of $375 for these confirmed sales. And if I can confirm another 335 or so, this gets me into the territory of Anna Can Buy a New Guitar. Y’all want me to have one of these lovely things, don’t you? 😉

Well, if you’ve bought Faerie Blood, this is exactly what you’ll be contributing to, and I have not forgotten my pledge in the earliest days of this blog of mine that if I do get that guitar, I will totally post video of myself playing it. And I’ll very likely also do another poll and giveaway, because let’s face it, folks, this will be a guitar you all helped me buy. Which means you totally should have a shot at helping me name it.

Ultimately, though, the really important thing to note here is that holy crap 165 of you out there have bought my book. I really hope you’re all enjoying it! And I thank you for your support.

December 29, 2009 by
Faerie Blood

Oh and by the way, y'all, about the Penguin…

I call this out on my Credits page, but I’ll call it out a little louder, because I’ve been asked a couple of times if the Electric Penguin, the geek bar/haven Kendis describes in Faerie Blood, exists. It does not. It is mostly a heavily geeked-up version of Jillian’s in my brain. But if it existed, I would totally frequent the place.

Mama’s Mexican Restaurant on the other hand is entirely real, including the Elvis decorations, and anybody who visits Seattle should totally go there and have a margarita. And think of Elessir when you do.

October 21, 2009 by
Faerie Blood

The plucky little ebook that could

So I’m still hanging in there in the Top 25 in Fantasy at Fictionwise! It’s been a month and change since I started paying attention, and I’ve gone from #18 up to #2, then fallen back to #22, only to boing back up to #19 as of last night. I’m quite curious now to see if I’ll go a whole two months clinging to the front page of the Fantasy rankings there. Also quite curious to know how much of this is from Fictionwise itself and how much from Fictionwise-related sites, like the Stanza bookstore or eReader.com.

Meanwhile, the folks over at The Plot Thickens, one of the Mobipocket partner sites who’re selling the book, have me up as a featured ebook of the month in Fantasy! Check it out!

Faerie Blood featured at The Plot Thickens

Faerie Blood featured at The Plot Thickens

They also noticed that I linked to their page for the book and kindly contacted me to offer me free author privileges if I make an account with them. So if any of you out there are fans of the Mobi format, you might consider popping by there to see if their store is to your liking. Tell ’em I sent ya.

September 23, 2009 by
Faerie Blood

One more super-quick Faerie Blood status check

It’s been about a month now since Faerie Blood showed up on Fictionwise, and I’m pleased to observe that I’m still in the top 20 on the Fantasy list there. I’ve peaked at #2 and am as of tonight at least back down to #18, which is where I started when I first paid attention to this. I am up to 12 ratings on the site, most of which appear to be “Great”, and I’m apparently now also the best-selling Drollerie book in their database. 14 people total have added me on Goodreads, too, and I had a new and very nice review show up on Amazon.

All of which is pleasing! It’s all small potatoes, sure. But they’re my potatoes. And they’re tasty!

No sign of me yet on Barnes and Noble, although I do note that the other ebook called Faerie Blood that I’d previously sighted in Fictionwise’s database is over there now. Hopefully I won’t be too far behind!

September 14, 2009 by
Faerie Blood

Royalties!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have received my very first statement of royalties for words I have written with my very own hands, on my very own computer. This is, I believe, another milestone at which I can be said to have leveled up in Writer.

As expected, the statement is very tiny–it only covers the month of June or so, since Faerie Blood was released over Memorial Day weekend, and this was before I showed up on Fictionwise and Amazon. But that said, it’s also a bit bigger than I was expecting. Its numbers say that 17 of you purchased copies of the book, and that my royalty share comes to $42.18.

I’m sharing the actual number for reference purposes–partly my own, just because I want to commemorate this, and partly for the reference of other aspiring writers out there just so you can know what to expect from a market that operates at Drollerie’s level. Note as well that this does not include numbers from Fictionwise, Mobipocket, or Amazon; these should be showing up hopefully on the next statement, and that number should be a bit more entertaining!

To those of you who fall into that group of 17, many, many thanks, and I hope you found the story well worth the purchase!

September 3, 2009 by