Some news, friends of the newsletter: Audition For The Fox is headed into an official second printing! What does that mean?

It means that, of the X number of copies they printed for the first run of the book which came out on September 16th, they sold, (or are close to selling) all of those physical copies. These sales have nothing to do with ebook or audio book copies, so in theory, up to, if not over that number of people have read/listened to AFTF! That is no small feat, and something I have to wrap my head around.

When I was with Erewhon, this kind of print run for first printing was actually on the higher end of things, especially for a small or indie press like we were. Tachyon, which is an independent press, would have been well within their rights to print a much smaller run. As much as I’ve been working in the field for a while, I’m still a relative unknown and my longer work sales were nonexistent. But! They believed in the book and thought the number chosen was a fairly hittable figure for sales.

And it worked out! So, what does this mean?

*The first thing it means is, more books! AFTF has been selling well enough that they’ll be printing more copies to sell. Most likely nowhere near the first run, but certainly some substantial number. It costs money to print, of course, and you don’t want to trigger small reprints again and again, right?

*It also means that I’ll be able to start making royalties on book sales, which is huge! I received an advance of $4,000 for AFTF. 2K on signing for the contract, and 2K when all was turned in and done, just prior to publication, less my agent’s cut. As it stands, the usual math is that for every book sold, the author “earns,” a dollar. I use quotation marks because that dollar goes back to Tachyon and pays into the advance they gave me. A return on investment, essentially.

However, because it is a smaller advance, it means this: there’s a very good possibility that if we sold out of the first printing, I have paid back into that advance in full. Which means moving forward, all sales will now have my cut moving into royalties. These royalties will arrive to me a few times a year in the form of a check, until they stop printing the book. So! That’s pretty dang cool, and while I don’t anticipate receiving thousands of dollars every few months, whatever IS received is officially a profit on my book. Which does not happen for everyone!

I feel nothing but deep gratitude and a little giddy/unbelieving that so many people have read my little book, and have spread the word about it to others. So much of this industry is a roll of the dice, and you can only load them so much with friends, reviews, events, etc.

So, thank you. To my readers, my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the strangers who took a chance on a wily fox and the young woman trying her best.

More to come!

Currently reading: Whidbey by T. Kira Madden

Currently listening: “Islands in the Stream,” with Sabrina Carpenter, Kermit, and Miss Piggy