It is now the close of my first year as a published author. I received my first contract on October 30, 2008 and my first release was February 22, 2009. With 2009 being my first year in this business, I thought it would kinda cool to see where I stood at the end of the calendar year. So here are some numbers to get you rolling.

Submissions: 17

Contracts: 17

Releases: 15

Print books: 3

Rejections: 3

Revise and Resubmits: 2

Anthologies: 3

Short Stories: 8

Novellas: 6

Novels: 2

Bestsellers: 4

Publishers: 8

The rejections were both right at the very start of my career. Two for Silver Lining and one for the first version of Runaways. The publisher who turned down Runaways didn’t even have their doors open yet and didn’t open them when they had posted that they would. That was probably a narrow escape I had there. The two for Silver Lining were followed by an acceptance. However, the small press where Silver Lining is didn’t give the antho a very attractive cover and I haven’t seen any royalties from this short story.

The R&Rs were for The Phoenix Prophecy (Where There’s Smoke.) Loose Id was interested but since it was an anthology they wanted some changes. Liquid Silver said they’d take it as a series rather than an anthology but wanted the ending to have more pop. I fixed the ending and LSB contracted it.

The two contracted submissions that aren’t out yet are The Phoenix Prophecy: Where There’s Smoke and a dark tale in the Weirdly 3 anthology, Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Hellhound.

The three print books are Tales of the Darkworld Volume One (Shifting Winds and Hot Water), Fire Season, and Love Me Dead.

The three anthologies are Weirdly 3 (that isn’t out yet), Thrilled (with Silver Lining), and Love Me Dead (with Rousing Caine.)

The short stories are Silver Lining, Mating, Runaways, Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Hellhound, Christmas Hookup, Christmas in Hell, Christmas Catch, and Holiday Hearts.

Novellas are The Wise Guy, Shifting Winds, Hot Water, Rousing Caine, The Pixie Prince, and Where There’s Smoke.

Novels were Fire Season and Ride the Lightning.

My publishers are Pink Petal Books, Liquid Silver Books, MLR Press, Cobblestone Press, Freya’s Bower, Wild Child Publishing, Noble Romance, and Midnight Showcase Fiction.

Now, the term bestseller is where you all may find yourselves scratching your heads. What ranks as a bestseller on some publisher’s lists (for their house only) would not cut it up against the numbers of a bigger house or a third party distributor like All Romance eBooks. I’m not going to get into a big discussion on that. I think it’s a topic for another day, but I need you all to understand the framework for the numbers I’m about to give you.

Basically, I have four bestsellers: Fire Season, Mating, Shifting Winds, and Christmas Catch. All of these have earned their silver star at ARe. The reason I’m using ARe as my yardstick for what’s a bestseller is simple. ARe sells books from ALL publishers, not just my publisher. So those books have sold really well at ARe despite the fierce competition. Christmas Hookup, which isn’t counted here because it’s free, has been listed as the best selling book of the western/cowboy category at ARe for a year. (When you sort the category by best selling Hookup rises to the top. It’s been that way since January 2009.) My estimate (I’ll have actual numbers on this probably next week) is that it’s been downloaded over 2,500 times between ARe, PPB, and some damned pirate site that showed actual download numbers until I had em remove the book. I can tell you that Fire Season alone has sold over 500 copies. Shifting Winds, in a single day of freebie downloading at ARe, was downloaded almost 2,000 times.

At PPB, to make it onto the bestseller chart, you have to have sold about 50 copies there on the publisher’s site.  So the #1 book on their bestseller list is probably closer to the 150 copy mark. (These are guesstimates. I don’t have hardcore numbers but Mary says it sounds about right without us crunching the actual numbers.) So far, all of my PPB releases have reached this benchmark. This sounds pretty good to me for a small pub only in its second year (but growing.) I know I’ve sold more at PPB with any one single title up against my one title at Cobblestone.

Now, looking at the numbers from a royalties perspective I can tell you that Fire Season (which released in July) would have made me PAN eligible. It’s my understanding that to be PAN eligible an author has to have made at least $1000 from a single title in a calendar year. (There’s a whole other criteria thing re non-vanity publishers and RWA eligible blah blah, but I’m just talking money here not politics.) A thousand bucks from one book in six months is a lotta clams. And I can see what I’m making in royalties but those payouts don’t give me a true sense of where I am with sales. I just go spend the moolah. LOL I can tell you that my royalties jumped significantly when my publishers put my books on ARe, My Bookstore and More, Fictionwise, Amazon, and others. Which is one reason I used the ARe yardstick here to define bestseller.

I could give you more numbers. Promo related stuff like:  I did three radio interviews, was a featured author on TRS once, did thirteen interviews, and fifteen guest blog posts.  I could tell you how many contests I’ve had, how many bookmarks and magnets I sent out. But promo is something I’ll get into another day. Suffice to say that I gave away books (both Ebooks and autographed print books), magnets, bookmarks, bookcards, and sent out author holiday cards.  This coming year I’ll have stuff going to some cons too. Lori Foster’s may see a very unusual Lex basket. The Escapade Slash con will have Love Me Dead bookmarks. EPICcon will have Ride the Lightning magnets. Promo stuff builds goodwill and people really remember you for those darn magnets!

So at the end of the year, I’ve surpassed my only goal of a dozen releases by three. But a dozen releases, even with so many of them being novellas or shorts, is a shitload of work. You have to be committed and driven. You have to have a promo plan and manage it while managing to write and keep to deadlines. You have to learn from your edits and editors. You have to read and pay attention to industry blogs to see what pubs not to sub to. You have to have a PLAN for your CAREER. Because at the end of this year, that is the one thing I’ve taken away from this experience in spades… I have a new career. And fuck me if it ain’t getting hotter with each release.

I may not have arrived yet… but I think just about everyone knows I’m coming.