Exciting news! A while back I wrote a short story for the Arcane Arts Anthology, and today it was officially published on Amazon! Woo! Click here to check it out.
I had the privilege of proofreading the collection, and I had a blast reading all the fantasy/sci-fi shorts. One of my particular favorites is The Dark Siren by Danielle E. Shipley and Tirzah Duncan, about a cigar-loving skeleton lady tele-marketer who gets dragged into saving the world.
My own contribution, Escape!, is about Rhapsody Swansong, a teenage bard-in-training who has to take her end-of-year exam at the Ascalon Academy of Arcane Arts and Adventuring in the form of an “escape room”. Unfortunately, her group members are an atheist cleric, a clumsy rogue, and a mage who can’t control her magic–and Rhapsody herself is a bard without an instrument. Battles are fought, friendships are formed, lessons are learned, and hilarity–of course!–ensues.
The anthologist, Kai Herbertz, is hard at work on the print version, as well as a German language edition.
Anyway, just thought I’d share the awesome news! If you’d care to grab yourself a copy, we would be eternally grateful for your support of the anthology. Or if you have a spare moment to share the anthology on your social media, that would be much appreciated as well.
Ladies and gentleman, I’m pleased to announce that I have officially received my royalty report from iUniverse for the months of January-March. The report came in on June 7th … a full week after it was supposed to … but still, it’s here! Huzzah!
After cross-checking my meticulous book sales records (a Word doc bullet list), I have determined that the royalties they’ve reported are correct. So props to iUniverse for their accurate accounting department!
I shall now divulge the sales stats for my first three months of sales under iUniverse:
Softcovers sold = 68
Hardcovers sold = 56
Ebooks:
Amazon = 33
B&N = 3
Kobo = 6
Tada! My sub-par yet inspiring stats for January-March. I’m pretty sure I have you guys to thank for those ebook sales, so thank you!!!
As for the softcovers/hardcovers, I know what you’re thinking — Gosh, Michelle, over 100 sold! That’s pretty darn good! Maybe print books aren’t dead after all! Now, that would be true, except that 100 of those were bought by me, for the purposes of re-sale/giving away. On the plus side, that leaves 24 print books unaccounted for — which I think is pretty darn cool!
Are these sales amazing? Goodness, no. Compared to some of my fellow bloggers, who complain when their sales drop under 50 a day, these stats are just pathetic. But hey, that’s cool! First book, crazy fluctuating ebook prices, wrong genre classification, questionably genre-appropriate cover, overpriced print copies, no up-to-date sales records for marketing analysis … I’m quite satisfied with the results thus far. Huzzah!
It does make me wonder how my sales would be if I’d not gone with iUniverse, and instead done something like KDP through Amazon. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough, though — now that Chasing Nonconformity, the sequel to Imminent Danger, is well into the editing stages, I’m starting to make plans to self-publish the sequel, as well as re-release Imminent Danger through KDP. This will likely necessitate splitting from iUniverse, something which I’m trying to feel sad about, but … somehow the emotion just isn’t there. Hehehe …
Anyway, for anyone wondering how I was doing, sales-wise, above is all the information I have. This info can also serve as a benchmark to my fellow self-published writers — if you’re selling better than me, clearly you’re doing something right! And if you feel like letting me in on what that something is, please, by all means, feel free. Live long and prosper, blogosphere!
I present to you now, “Dirty Cash” by BigBang, who are arguably the most popular boy band in South Korea. (To KPOP fans — I said arguably! Put away your weapons!) As you will gather when they sing the chorus, they don’t want your dirty cash. They’re quite firm on this point.
Exciting news! A while back I wrote a short story for the Arcane Arts Anthology, and today it was officially published on Amazon! Woo! Click here to check it out.
Michelle Proulx - Author 
