Royalty Statements

Some royalty statements arrived this week and PA John has been practising making sense of them and learning how to enter the information onto a simple spreadsheet (the only way to keep track of things).

Some publishers still send out statements requiring decoding skills that the guys at Bletchley Park would have been proud of, but many are getting at least a little more user-friendly. I don't pretend to be able to make sense of all the codes and sub-sections, but I like to keep track of the bottom-line of what has been earned each period, and what the new running total is. (NB: do you like my shark stapler?):

For most books, this means the Unearned Balance, at least for a while - that is: what I have yet to earn before I have covered my advance and get any more money (sigh). But for books that have either done really well, or have simply been chugging away for a very long time, I actually get a payment (hurrah!).

My royalty payments are generally more the kind that will buy a nice new pair of shoes, rather than a nice new yacht but, hey-ho, it all feels like free money by that stage anyway...

By the way, if you are confused about why Thursday's post Digitally Created Backgrounds appeared, then immediately disappeared, it's because Blogger went down this week and that post got wiped off. It's back again now.