Month: February 2004

Hi. I got my royalty check today. I thought I would break it down for everyone, since many of you shared in the book-making or book-buying experience. First off, we sold 563 books. Yay! Then 39 were returned. Boo! Total sold, that stayed sold: 524. Now, as you all know, the cover price is an astonishing $35. So, $35 x 524 books gets us $18,340. Then there’s this black box where we convert this number to the “net proceeds” which is, as my letter helpfully tells me, is gross receipts minus refunds. The letter does not explain “gross receipts.” The letter does say that the amount of money I get is not a percentage of the list price of my book, because of discounts and so forth. Net proceeds are $14,659, roughly 80% of the cover price. Katia and I get 10% of this. I get 50% of that. Beers are on me next time you guys are in town.