Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 20
January 15, 2020
ConFusion
After more than a year away from the convention scene, I’ll be at ConFusion in Novi this weekend. My schedule is relatively light, which is probably for the best:
Saturday
10 a.m. – Evolving Visions of Toxic Masculinity (with Jason Sanford, Marsalis, Kameron Hurley, and Brandon O’Brien)
3 p.m. – Mass Autographing
7 p.m. – Reading (with Cherie Priest and Anthony W. Eichenlaub)
My son is coming with my this year. I’ll probably be splitting my free time between catching up with all of my SF/F friends and showing him around the convention. My main goal is just for both of us to have a fun, relatively laid-back time. And of course, to catch up on more than a year’s worth of hugs from everyone!
January 10, 2020
Cool Stuff Friday
Friday has very mixed feelings about 2020 so far…
Dog protest signs
Instagram feed from a puppy daycare
Baby otters!
January 5, 2020
Tattoo, Part Two of Three(?)
Went back to Eclectic Art on Friday to get the next round of work done on the tattoo. James had done the linework and initial shading at the beginning of December. This time, he started adding color.
It’s hard to say if this hurt more than before. Some of the thicker lines in December felt like pretty deep scratches. None of the coloring was that sharp, but he had to go over the same patch of skin again and again to get it all filled in, which wasn’t pleasant. And as I understand it, the needles are different for color and shading — more like a broad (but still very small) paintbrush made of needles, as opposed to the pen-tip style needle(s) for the lines.
None of it was too bad. But it was enough I couldn’t just doze off and take a nap 
January 4, 2020
The California Escape
As some of you know, my kids and I skipped town and went to northern California for a week over the Christmas holiday. In part, it was because we’d never been. Mostly, it was because we weren’t up for being here and trying to have a “normal” Christmas.
Aside from our almost-yearly trips to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, this was the first real vacation we’d taken in … well, pretty much as long as I can remember. We’ve had a few weekend trips here and there, but not many, and not in years.
Looking back, I think I tried to squeeze in too many destinations. Next time, I’ll plan on slowing down and spending a little more time. But overall, I’m calling it a success. We all had some good experiences and some “wow” moments. My daughter got to see sea lions. My son got to pet lots of new dogs. I got to visit the Charles M. Schulz museum
January 2, 2020
2019 Writing Income
Welcome to 2020, and may it be better than 2019 for all of us!
I’ve been doing an annual write-up of my author income each year since 2007, as a kind of reality-check against the myth that we’re all super-wealthy and earning Stephen King-level royalty checks.
As many of you already know, 2019 was the worst year of my life. We spent most of the year helping my wife Amy fight cancer, and the last few months trying to cope with her loss. As a result, I got pretty much zero writing done.
Unexpected crises, health-related and others, are a part of life. And my guess is most authors — most freelancers and self-employed folks in general — will sooner or later hit a year where life razes their plans and salts the earth where those plans once grew.
Here’s what that looked like for me, financially speaking.
Previous Years: Here are the annual write-ups going back to 2007: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018.
In 2016, I did a survey of almost 400 novelists about their income.
My Background: I’m a primarily “traditionally published,” U.S.-based SF/F author with 14 books in print from major New York publishers. The first of those books came out from DAW in 2006. I’ve also sold about 50 short stories. I’ve never hit the NYT or USA Today bestseller lists, but my last five books have been lead titles for my publisher. In late 2015, I mostly-quit my full-time day job, switching to 10-15 hours/week for the State of Michigan, and spending the rest of my time writing and as stay-at-home Dad.
In 2019, most of that time and energy went to caretaking for my wife.
2019 Summary: The original plan for 2019 was to finish Terminal Peace and hopefully sell some new books to DAW. My agent was also shopping around two finished middle grade projects.
Neither of those middle grade projects sold. As for Terminal Peace, I stopped writing at all for a while in 2019, and have only gotten back to it in the past couple of months. I’m about halfway through the first draft, making progress, but at a slower pace than before.
As a result, I had no 2019 income from anything new. It was all royalties and payments on already-sold projects.
Before taxes and expenses, but after any agent commissions, I made $13,811.78 from my writing in 2019.
Here’s the annual income graph going back to 2002.
2019 Breakdown: Most of the novel money was from the portion of the advance that came with the hardcover publication of Terminal Uprising. The rest was royalties from the books that have earned out their advances (Goblins, Princesses, and I believe the first two Magic ex Libris books).
I didn’t have any new self-published work in 2019, so it’s nice to see that all those little monthly checks added up to four figures.
Novels (U.S. editions): $9551.54
Novels (Non-U.S. editions): $1215.45
Self-Published: $1285.56
Short fiction: $237.08
Audio: $900.84
Other: $621.31
Other Notes: If all goes well, 2020 should see things turn around a bit. I’m hoping to get Terminal Peace done and turned in, and to finally sell something new to DAW. That should be a nice boost, and get me back toward my “normal” writing path.
But honestly, it’s nice to realize I’ve produced and published enough that even when I have such an awful and unproductive year, my work still generates enough income to help support my family. That feels like a real payoff and reward from a quarter-century of working to be a writer.
As always, I hope this is helpful. Feel free to share the post and to ask any questions. I can’t promise to answer everything, but I’ll do my best.
December 20, 2019
December 13, 2019
Cool Stuff Friday
Friday is moving to impeach Mondays.
The Happy Broadcast: illustrations of positive news headlines
Liquid Cats
Cats and Dogs and Identity Crises
December 6, 2019
Cool Stuff Friday
Friday will bring honor to us all.
Holiday Goals: Steven Newland’s smoke-breathing Godzilla Christmas tree
Chris Porsz’s dog pics!
Cat Snapchats
December 5, 2019
Tattoo, Part One of Three
Yesterday I had the first of three sessions for my very first tattoo.
I’d been talking about this for much of 2019. If I was going to do it, I wanted to go all out. I knew I wanted something that would represent my family, so I talked to Amy and the kids about what sort of imagery would best represent them.
Amy liked the idea of a tree: natural and outdoorsy, with strong roots and branches. For my son Jamie, a dragon was the obvious choice. And for Skylar, we went with a moon. I spent a while looking at artists online, scrolling through portfolios, before finally settling on James Hurley at Eclectic Art Tattoo in Lansing.
I went in to meet with him in August. We talked about what I wanted, and he sounded confident he could pull it all together and create something I was happy with.
Here’s the “Before” picture from yesterday morning — my last day ever of having a naked left arm. (Click on any of the pics if you want a larger view.)
James was finishing up inking the drawing to create a stencil when I arrived. This was my first time seeing his design, which made me nervous. What if I didn’t like it? What if I wanted him to make lots of changes?
I needn’t have worried. I peeked over his shoulder, saw what he was touching up, and loved it. It got the three elements I wanted, and the overall image is very on-brand for me
December 2, 2019
CyberMonday Book Deals
A purely self-promotional post, for anyone looking to drop a few bucks on relatively cheap ebooks…
Goblin Quest: The first book in the goblin trilogy, and the story that launched my SF/F career. Humorous fantasy about an underdog goblin named Jig and his pet fire-spider Smudge.
$2.99 at Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks
The Stepsister Scheme: The first of four fairy tale-based adventures that turn Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty into kick-ass action heroes.
$2.99 at Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks
Imprinted: A Magic ex Libris novelette, set after the events of Revisionary.
$1.99 at Amazon | B&N | Smashwords | Kobo | iBooks
