Yeas, it’s another sales report…

Amazon’s sent me a payment report for this month, and I decided to wander over to the KDP site to check this month’s sales. I’ve got sales in the US, the UK, and Germany. Of course I want to thank all my buyers, but I want to take a moment first to thank the folks in the UK and Germany who are buying my books. The US market is still where I get the bulk of my sales from, but for a while, there wasn’t any reason to check the other country reports because I never got anything except a blank screen. But during this year, there’s been a new trickle of buyers outside the US, and it feels really good to see I sold something in Germany, even if it’s just one copy of Peter the Wolf that sold.

Folks in the US still carry the bulk of sales every month, and this month, y’all picked up quite a few books. Peter got some love there too, but so did Sandy, Amber, Vicky and a few others. (It’s early in the morning, and my brain is fuzzy.) That’s not enough to hire an army of minions, but definitely enough to pay for another cover. And, that’s not bad.

I do not want to seem ungrateful for this continued success, but I would like to ask y’all Amazon buyers in the politest way possible, if you’ve read a book from me and want to help me get more sales for it, a short review would really help me out. A few kind words from you carries more weight than all the words I use pimping my stuff. So please, do think about posting a review to let others know what you thought of the story.

I need to annoy you with a reminder that we still need contributions to pay my editor for Roll the Bones. We’ve had 3 donations totaling $45, so we only need $510 to meet our goals within 35 days. Although the incentive packages are loaded with my ebooks, I will be seeing no royalties from this campaign, and whatever we collect, minus fees from Indiegogo, will go to Tara to help her cover her debts and take care of her kid.

Those of you who already donated, thank you. And thanks to everyone who’s shared the link to the campaign too. It’s hard for me to do this kind of campaign on my tiny low-traffic platforms, so every signal boost and link means another chance to reach new people. So if we meet our goal, it’s only because of all the help you folks provide. Even if we don’t make our goal, Tara will get a partial payment, and I’ll resort to giving her a larger percentage of my other sales until she’s paid up for Roll the Bones. Then we can start worrying about paying her for working on Thicker Than Blood.

So, closing out this progress report, I wanted to point out that I have a few more free stories posted up for your perusal. They’re over in the sidebar under the books, but those links are kinda tiny. So I’ll mention them here and offer them as a small sign of my gratitude. For your reading pleasure, I offer two novelettes, Eddie’s First Circus and Served Cold.

Eddie’s First Circus was published on Kindle, but I’ve taken it down to offer y’all a free sample of my dark fantasy writing. Served Cold was a revenge story that I wrote on spec for a crime fiction anthology. I was told my story was being held for possible inclusion, but the book never came out, and the publisher went out of business due to the owner having serious health problems. (This happens a lot in small-press publishing. Either there’s too many sick people starting up publishing houses, or small-press publishing is bad for your health.) Anyway, Served Cold is what my husband calls one of my darkest stories, while Eddie’s First Circus is…slightly less dark. But it’s got a kid who talks to animals, so that’s kinda cute.

Both stories feature deeply troubled kids trying to deal with problems in their lives, but while anti-hero Jessie Mendoza opts to do something positive for his little brother Eddie after the murder of their mother, the protagonist of Served Cold, Andrew, chooses to take a convoluted path toward revenge against a bully.

And so, there you are, free fiction. The ePub file is DRM-free, so feel free to convert the file to whatever version you need. And, one last time, thanks for your continued support.