3/31/14

Wonderful Curious Peoples

For several weeks, I’ve been asked variations of a particular question by curious peoples: how many books have you sold?

People ask it a little hesitantly, as if they shouldn’t be prying. I truly don’t mind, but I don’t have an answer for them, because I don’t know.

Yep. I don’t know how many books I’ve sold.

It’s quite pathetic really, for this girl who chose a major that does little more than make graphs of data. {Just kidding.} {Not really.} You can blame the major, if you like. Or perhaps my cynicism is at fault. When all this started, I think I expected to be able to keep track of it--more or less--in my head. I’m usually pretty good at that.

I wasn’t taking into account the fact that my books are sold through three different outlets in about a dozen different countries. Keep track of that in your head, I dare you.

But two things recently forced me to put some numbers on paper. First, April 15 is arriving swiftly, and, second, I recently bought glasses after 5+ years of an old prescription {when your eyes are as bad as mine, this matters}.

Thanks to tax preparation, I had to figure out how many books I sold in 2013. The book came out in August, so I had over four months of data to wade through. And I am here to tell you, all you people who want to know, that Those Who Trespass was purchased over 100 times in 2013. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you that or not; for authors with a publishing house, this is a bit taboo. But I am my own publishing house, and one of my favorite things about being an indie-author is the utter control I have over things like this. You’re welcome, wonderful curious peoples.

And because you are so curious, I know you’re now wondering what that translates to in dollars. I’ll let you do the estimation yourself {and good luck, because it's so varying that I can't even estimate it accurately}, but I can tell you that I recently went to the optometrist and paid for my own exam, like a grown-up person. And I bought glasses.

Such things are expensive, especially when you have to have your lenses smashed to socially acceptable thinness.

Yes, my face whitened a considerably when I heard the number. And yes, I know about online glasses places. {Wasn’t my cup of tea this time around.} But seriously, do you want to know something cool? The entire cost was covered exactly to the dollar by my book profits.

That was cool.

So. I hope your curiosity is slightly satisfied. If it’s still bothering you, I suggest physics.

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