One, I have bought a nook. The cost of said nook as well as a loverly cover to put it in is roughly about the same as the amount of royalties I have now received for Faerie Blood, and to a tiny degree, Defiance.

(Which of course means that this is the Nook That Faerie Blood Bought, folks. That you all helped me buy. And for this, I thank you all! Watch this space for a forthcoming new poll on what exactly I should name the Nook, and a likely giveaway for a randomly selected winner!)

Two, I’ve also bought five, count ‘em, five ebooks by Macmillan authors, up on Fictionwise.

Three, and because I’m really in the mood to show some love directly to awesome authors, I have thrown ten bucks at the current efforts of to sell her commissioned novella “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”. It’s set in her Old Races universe and features Janx and Daisani, and she’s selling it directly off her site for ten bucks a pop this month. Hie ye over here and show her some support, y’all!

“But Anna,” I hear you cry, “ten bucks a pop for a novella? Isn’t that more than I’d be paying for a paperback?” Yes. Yes it is. But the beauty of this is, since Kit is selling it directly, she gets every last penny, and since she has an established track record of about a dozen books’ worth of awesome, I’m pretty damn sure $10 for a novella full of her words will be worth the price.

Also, she’s Kit. So go, my Internet armies! And tell her I sent you!

Roughly 217 somebodies, in fact. If you’re one of those 217 or so, I thank you wholeheartedly and hope you’ll have enjoyed what I provided. Most of these sales are indeed Faerie Blood, although Defiance does have a tiny blip of presence on the statement. Also, it is a point of interest that the reported sales are for Drollerie Press’s own site, Fictionwise (by far the majority of the sales), and Mobipocket. Amazon sales are not represented and hopefully this will be updated as of the next statement received. Clearly, though, Fictionwise loves me. <3

There are more words on the way! And tonight's addition to that "more", tapped out on the iPhone at Conflikt while listening to the inimitable Alexander James Adams belting out his best (and then more typed after), was a few hundred more words into Chapter 1 of Mirror’s Gate. I know now that the lead characters are Aleksandr and Yevanya Morokev, and that Yevanya’s cousin who’d really like nothing better than to step into the esteemed position of “husband” with her is Antoli. The names are of course Russian-influenced, although I’ll be playing around with this some and thinking about how the elves of Vreyland would have affected the language and the naming conventions. Plus, I just want to throw in a few character names that aren’t direct real-world analogues.

Tonight’s efforts got paused though as I got to a point where I need to mention the name of the city serving as the primary setting here, and I’m not sure yet whether I want a short terse name or a long exotic one. Spent some time mulling the list on Wikipedia of Russian cities, but so far none of them have served as inspiration for naming the Vreyish capital. Potential elven influence may be called for here.

Written tonight: 316
Chapter 1 total: 546
Mirror’s Gate total: 546

Meanwhile, I’ve finally gotten a bit of sales data from my editor , who informs me that during 3rd Quarter 2009, I sold 148 copies at Fictionwise! This means I now have 165 confirmed sales so far–and this isn’t counting anything from Mobipocket or Amazon or other sites, not to mention Drollerie’s own store during that period. So when the royalty statement finally shows up, I’m hopeful it’ll have some interesting numbers indeed.

For the home audience–this means that by very rough estimation, I’d be getting somewhere in the vicinity of $375 for these confirmed sales. And if I can confirm another 335 or so, this gets me into the territory of Anna Can Buy a New Guitar. Y’all want me to have one of these lovely things, don’t you?

Well, if you’ve bought Faerie Blood, this is exactly what you’ll be contributing to, and I have not forgotten my pledge in the earliest days of this blog of mine that if I do get that guitar, I will totally post video of myself playing it. And I’ll very likely also do another poll and giveaway, because let’s face it, folks, this will be a guitar you all helped me buy. Which means you totally should have a shot at helping me name it.

Ultimately, though, the really important thing to note here is that holy crap 165 of you out there have bought my book. I really hope you’re all enjoying it! And I thank you for your support.

As expected, the statement is very tiny–it only covers the month of June or so, since Faerie Blood was released over Memorial Day weekend, and this was before I showed up on Fictionwise and Amazon. But that said, it’s also a bit bigger than I was expecting. Its numbers say that 17 of you purchased copies of the book, and that my royalty share comes to $42.18.

I’m sharing the actual number for reference purposes–partly my own, just because I want to commemorate this, and partly for the reference of other aspiring writers out there just so you can know what to expect from a market that operates at Drollerie’s level. Note as well that this does not include numbers from Fictionwise, Mobipocket, or Amazon; these should be showing up hopefully on the next statement, and that number should be a bit more entertaining!

To those of you who fall into that group of 17, many, many thanks, and I hope you found the story well worth the purchase!