Just what it says on the tin...
One of my royalty statements arrived today, and it wasn't quite as wrist slittingly piddling as I'd feared. Not much, but not so little that they simply sent the greengrocer's lad round with a bag of monkey nuts. Was reasonably satisfied... until started discussing royalty statements in general on a list I'm on... which caused me to look more closely at certain figures, and realise exactly how small a proportion of the price of a book the author actually gets. And how many books get 'returned'... Navy blue gloom set in again... and not for the first time, I started fingering my lottery ticket and chanting incantations. Was tempted to promise my firstborn to the gods of Lotto, but then remembered I don't have one...
So, back to paper editing my opus. Again, mixed. Some bits are okay, but I'm into an uncharted sort of region now. A bit of the book I've only 'written' and not worked over about four or five times. And consequently it's very rough, untidy, twittish and amateurish in a lot of places, and reads like it was a first draft of a first ever novel written by a poorly educated teenager. Oh, I think I'll be able to knock it into shape somehow, but it's going to need a couple more runs over this last 100 pages or so...
On the up side, the rampant indigestion and dyspepsia I've suffered for the last few days hasn't been so bad today. So at least that's in my favour... Wouldn't want to have bad guts over the weekend when Saturday is fish and chip night!
2 comments:
Wendy! You should write more for EC! The more books I have available for pruchase there, the nicer my check is every month--even when I don't have a new release for several months in a row.
Delilah Devlin
Part of me would love to do more for EC... but it's back to this business of being a slow writer. I can't do everything I want...
I'm a bit old school. When I write a book, I like to be able to hold a physical copy of it in my hand, and there's no sign of a print copy of Lessons and Lovers yet. If I'd had it in my hand by now, I'd probably be writing for EC even as we speak... ;)
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