The check is in the mail.

The check is in the mail. That's what I found out the other day when I was scouring my Lulu creator account for royalties due. The check was in the mail. It's about time, I thought. I've been publishing and selling my books through Lulu.com for eight years now, this month, and I finally sold enough books to get my first royalty check. I got it today and this is what I looked like this afternoon, holding the royalty check up to my rinky-dink digital camera that was hooked up to my PC and Windows Movie maker for me to take a video snapshot for later.

I won't tell you how much the check was for but I will tell you that I had to wait eight years to sell a mere 21 trade paperbacks in order to get my first royalty payment. Most of these 21 books were purchased by Amazon.com customers and I'll be forever grateful for their patronage. Right now, Amazon.com is responsible for 99.9% of my books sales. I've been an Amazon author since 2009 and I've only sold a dozen or so paperback books there but I've also sold a couple hundred Kindle Editions. Of course I had to give a way a few thousand FREE Kindle ebooks in order to sell the couple hundred Kindle Editions and garner enough interest for a few paperback sales. Still, I'm selling books. Thank you, Amazon.com customers. And, thank you Lulu.com customers, for your purchases.

Yep, that's the reality of never having your name mentioned on TV. If someone on national TV said I was an author my sales would skyrocket overnight. But who cares anymore? I write because I like to write and that's what I do. So, when I got my first royalty check today from my publisher, Lulu.com, I didn't exactly do cartwheels across the lawn and I have no plans to go on a three-day drunk or anything like that and I have no plans to call anyone. Instead, I blogged about it this evening and then I'm going to check the online TV listings for tomorrow and then I'll call it a day.