The Philosopher's Stone

NEW WRITING EXPERIENCE:

What, you may ask, is this new experience? Well, I can honestly say it's one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

Yesterday, I arrived home from work and checked the mail, as I'm prone to do. What should I find there but an envelope from Yard Dog Press ... the publishers of The Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse, my debut anthology. In the envelope was a check for my royalties from the first half of the year.

I honestly wasn't sure if I'd ever see such a check. I had received an advance from them and, though it was small, I wasn't sure what sort of sales figures a small press anthology like FBotA would end up with. Still don't, actually. I'd have expected the pay stub to include some sort of information about total sales over that period times my percentage of the royalties minus the amount of my advance that was still waiting to be paid out, or something similar. I'd be interested to know if the book sold 100 or 250 copies to date. To be honest, I'm not even sure what the original print run was.

I hear horror stories (the real kind) about authors never getting paid from unscrupulous "publishers." Just the other day there was a posting on the HWA board about an anthology from a couple of years back that none of the authors ever got free copies of.

I got paid an advance, received a contributor's copy, got a discount on copies for resell, and continue to get royalties. I judge that this means not only have I been published in an anthology, but in a successful anthology.

Again, copies of the anthology can be obtained at AZJ's Four Bubbas page, signed by yours truly. Do not miss out on this monumental, phenomenal, and truly world-changing event. Granted, the world that is changed is a fictional one, but it's entertaining nonetheless.