Royce's Random Thoughts

Summary: A month of good, solid sales. There was definitely as bit of a post-Christmas bump, likely from either new Kindle owners and/or people using Amazon gift cards. A slightly weird anomaly with CotRV however, as it received ten sales, but was refunded three times. Either three people thought better of their purchase, or one person was seriously waffling.

Meanwhile, overseas sales were basically dead, with only one purchase from Great Britain. Have to if that picks up next month at all, and whether I can persuade anybody over there to offset my lousy COtRV review on the UK site with slightly better ones.


Things to Do: Aside from managing my one hundred words a day from my 365 Days of Drabbles project I've been struggling to put anything down on (virtual) paper. The muse just ain't there, which is especially frustrating since I seriously owe Naziha her story in payment for her cover art work. Hopefully I'll finish up I Fought the Claw soon after that, and then get seriously cracking on Legacy of the Red Vixen.


Sales Report:

Captive of the Red Vixen: Paid 8 (1 UK) , Borrowed 3

For Your Safety: 7

Good Landing: 42 (Free)

Prisoners of War: 12

Shadow of the Red Vixen: Paid 12, Borrowed 1

The Dragon's Companion: 1

Summary: This has been the best month I've ever had, frankly. It started with the long awaited (by me at least) publication of Shadow of the Red Vixen. To celebrate this, I switched CotRV over to Amazon Prime and offered it for free the first five days of the month. I expected I'd get a few downloads, but the response was pretty overwhelming, with over seven hundred purchases domestically and quite a few internationally.

Meanwhile, SotRV sold extremely well, with twenty-five copies domestically and one Prime lending download. The $2.99 price tag I put on it doesn't seem to have been a factor in sales at all.

This leads to an important lesson. That 70% royalty rate from KDP made a big difference in my profits. Normally I'd expect about $15 to $20 in profits every six weeks or so. Now I'm looking at over hundred dollars when everything is added together. Small change by professional standards, but pretty good for an author of silly Furry sci-fi.


Things to Do: I'm working on the next story in the Red Vixen Adventures, Legacy of the Red Vixen which involves Mel and Rolas' n'er do well daughter getting into trouble, exiled to Planet Dull, and then finding amusement when she discovers her mom's old hobby. It's going slowly, since I've been fighting to get time to write, and then motivation as I fight my now usual winter depression.

Meanwhile I intend to use the profits from this month's sales to commission new covers for Triumvirate and Good Landing from Nez, just to make them more professional looking and bring them in line with my other works.

After that I'm going to poke more at the For Your Safety universe and see if I can't get an anthology out of it. I figure there might be two books worth, the first concerning the Groupmind's gentle conquest of humanity, then the "War of the Ring" as their charges awaken on their new home and make their displeasure known.


Sales Report:

Captive of the Red Vixen: Paid 7 (1 DE), Borrowed 3, Free 768 (48 UK, 13 DE, 4 FR, 1 IT)

For Your Safety: 3

Good Landing: 26 (Free)

Prisoners of War: 10

Shadow of the Red Vixen: Paid 26 (1 UK), Borrowed 1

The Dragon's Companion: 2

Well, so much for working on Warbird. ;p

* * *

It had been a fragging magnificent party.

Ryza stretched out in the back seat of the lighter, watching the lights of the Darktail District shimmer below her through the transparent flooring. She wiggled her feet, giggling as her golden and bejeweled toe rings caught the light from below. Then she looked up, waving goodbye cheerily to the great airship that was the Queen of the Clouds. It has been a constant party for three days aboard woth her boarding school friends as it made its way slowly from the coast to the interior of the Darktail lands. Her lands. Home.

I am Mistress of the Uuuuuuuuuuniverse.

( For the moment )

Yes I'm already thinking about the next book when I haven't gotten beta feedback about the second one yet. Just writing down notes so I don't forget.

Characters:

Rolas & Melanie's Daughter: Seventeen or eighteen, just finished school, looking forward to her Holiday Year before she goes into the Service for her mandatory three year tour.

Her Wazagan Buddy: Offworlder exchange student bunking with the Darktail family. Tends to act as a one wazagan Greek Chorus when the romance tropes kick in.

Human Boy: Nice guy. Studying engineering via VR classes while getting practical experience at the spaceport on the colony world Lady Salli rules with a velvet fist administers. Still, he's a human so Rollie and Mel's daughter is TOTALLY not interested in him because he's Ewww human.


Plot: In Which Daughter is Pissed Because Mom and Dad Send Her to Aunt Salli's Totally Boring Colony World Which Turns Out to Not Be So Boring Once She Finds Mom's Old Pirate Ship And She Also Learns A Very Important Lesson in Interspecies Tolerance (Despite Aunt Salli Being a Total Stick About the Whole Thing) and Also How to Snog Someone Who Doesn't Have a Muzzle.

Also, I seem to developing a habit in this series of making the previous protagonists look at least mildly dickish in the next book. Shrug.