A Check for $15.37

$15.37 isn’t a lot. It really isn’t.

I received a check for $15.37, and I’ve never worked so hard for 15 bucks as I did for that little check. That check was a royalty check. It was $15.37 I’ve earned so far off of my debut novel, Mr. Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Dark.

It’s official: I am a professional author. I’ve written a book and I’ve made money off of said book. Pro-fess-io-nal!

I wrote the book a few years ago, but I was afraid to let it out into the world. It was something I’d invested a lot of time, and a lot of myself, into making. The characters were a part of me, but they also spoke in their own voices. The book was an extension of myself, but it was also something greater than myself.

That book was my baby.

Do you know how scary it is to let your baby out into the world? Mr. Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Dark wasn’t just a book, it was my book. I sat on the manuscript for over five years. What if my baby went out into the world and people didn’t like it? How dare you not like my baby, you jerk!

But my lovely wife gave me the courage to let my baby, my book, out into the world. She helped make a cover for me and helped me edit the book. Then I edited it, and she edited it, and I edited again. Then I dragged my feet for a month, and then we had another round of edits.

Finally, I published my book on Amazon, and I gave it away for free during SiouxperCon 2016, hoping to get the word out. I actually had a decent number of downloads, but I didn’t make any money off of the freebie copies. After the promotion, the book went for sale at regular price. (You can get the book on Amazon for just $4.99!)

$15.37 isn’t a lot, but it was my first royalty check. Hopefully there will be more in the future!

I’m now working on my second novel, the first novel in my Jack Gryphon’s Cabinet of Curiosities series. If you’d like to keep on top of my writing career, join my mailing list here.