On My First Sale For The Year!

I won’t deny it. This has been a poor year for writing sales. Actually, so far, I’d have to say it’s a zero sale year. This despite the fact that I no longer have to prepare classes or mark student work or go to meetings. I’ve been trying, believe me! I’ve been submitting. Checking out markets. Rewriting. But my submissions table has one “rejected!” after another. All I have been able to do is remind myself of what Bjo Trimble said at a convention I attended years ago: “Cherish your rejection slips. They prove you’re a writer. Only writers get rejection slips.” I have even found that a market I had long loved and  relied on has completely revamped itself and suddenly, it’s not been possible to sell them stuff. Heck, they have even shelved something they have already accepted and PAID for! They now have a slush pile, dealt with by one editor, and you get an automated response.

But now, with the help of a friend who has sold a lot more than me, I have had a chance to get my foot back into the education publishing industry, to do two chapter books. If this works out I might even get more work from them, but one step a time.

The friend who helped me warns me that education doesn’t do royalties any more. You get a flat fee. It might not even be possible to get lending rights because those assume you are entitled to royalties. That last I will worry about later.

Here’s the thing: I’ve done fiction for education publishers before. They paid me an advance of $500 with royalties to come. However, the royalties were paid at about 2.5 per cent of the net, not the RRP. And they printed about 1500-1700 copies, which were never reprinted. So...I never got much in the way of royalties anyway. And that was only from the US editions. I did get a lot from my non fiction - even with the net royalties, I’ve made thousands of dollars from my book on archaeology, over the years - but not fiction. So, what the heck! The pay is decent, it works out about what I was paid for my novel, in fact about what a journalist is paid for a feature article and they don’t get to keep their rights. They survive.

I am so delighted with this! Today I had a call from the editor to talk about it. I’ve signed the details form she sent me and she asked for my ABN so she can get started on the contract. I went to the library and started my first draft of one chapter book today - the other one needs revamping, because it was more mythology than the requested fantasy and they already have a mythology title. She said she loved my characters and asked if I could somehow work in some elements of my original synopsis, which she did like.  But I’m working on the approved one first.

Tomorrow I’m going to my Ardoch volunteer primary school, then off to the library again! I simply had to share this good news...