Mammoth Royalty Report for September

Royalties. Yes, they keep dribbling in (cf., e.g., June 24 et al.) — in this case actually for sales for 2023’s first six months. And despite, in the publisher’s own words, [s]ales were abysmal, but some — few — of you have money coming. Although I’m not really quite one of the “few” since, despite this latest take, it remains in the pot until there’s enough there to justify postage to send me a check.

Yes, “check” — as the publisher (who as is the custom will not be named here, nor will actual amounts, to avoid embarrassment all around) explains, PayPal surcharges are high enough these days to cut more than the stamps would.

But it all adds up, still. And these are for short stories, in this case collected for several different anthologies, but the point is that they’re shared with other contributing authors as well. Each of us with our own mite. But as I pointed out (the publisher asked for us to acknowledge receiving the report — after months and years sometimes addresses change), with poor sales especially it’s neat that there’s anything there at all.

And that’s the point, sort of. Few of us in the writing game make that much money — especially not from continued short fiction anthology sales — but there’s still bragging rights. Art, even for just art’s sake, is worth pursuing. And little dabs of money, repeated, given enough time may grow into piles.