Royalties

I have my first royalty cheque for The Book, covering sales up to the end of June.  It was waiting for me when I got home yesterday.

Eligible sales were 1300 copies, which I understand is not too bad for a specialised techie book’s first six months.  The good reviews it’s got can’t hurt!

Alas, it’s not just a conventionally-miserly royalty: it’s rendered nearly-worthless by being denominated in US dollars.   A payment that might’ve been worth £2400 at the time I was writing the book is reduced to £1800.  Not that I was expecting to get rich on it, but that kind of drop feels like a third-world currency in crisis.  Worse than getting paid in b***** Lire, as I was for most of the 1990s (when I became a millionaire each month, without ever getting rich).

Still, it’s a satisfying outcome to the effort that’s gone into the project: the fun of writing it, the stress of the editing/publishing process, and the pain of the ITIN epic.