Royce's Random Thoughts

Okay, so 2020, aside from being a plague infested trash fire, was reasonably good for me writing wise. While my sales and overall profit took a significant dip compared to 2019, I had a couple more anthology publications, some free advertising courtesy of the Voice of Dog Podcast, and I finally published my long gestating Red Vixen prequel novel The Visitors.

Subtracting expenses, I made an overall profit of 222.11, which is a 1/3 drop from 2019's $333.15.

Notably, the only thing I self-published this year was The Visitors, which comprised approximately 30% of my total sales and 40% of my profit. As always it's a situation of "publish or perish" with my whatever my New Thing is being my biggest seller. Though that does prove I have a small but loyal fanbase that does look forward to my stuff. Notably my second biggest seller was The Complete Red Vixen Adventures which made about 20% of my overall profit, despite being several years old. It doesn't hurt that CRVA is also my thickest, and therefore most expensive, book. Also while The Rise of the Ring's sales dropped a lot, it still was in third place overall. Perhaps the most surprising drop was the two Prisoners books, which only sold two copies, despite being a significant part of my sales last year.

All told I sold 105 ebooks in 2020, compared to 155 last year, 2 paperbacks instead of 11 last year, 11,485 KENP pages read compared to 14,071, and 3 audiobooks compared to 8 in 2019. So much reduced, though I'm unsure if it's because of reader disinterest, or because of the general economic downturn due to COVID-19 reducing my readership's spending money. 

Things accomplished:

1. "With One Hand Tied Behind His Back" published in Fanged Fiction's erotic anthology Give Yourself a Hand.

2. "Gently Kept" published in Thurston Howl Publication's Howloween erotic horror anthology.

3. Self-published The Visitors.

4. "At Prayer" and "To Catch the Lightning Part One" and "Part Two" read by Khaki on his Voice of Dog podcast. 

5. Submitted "A Leopard Can't Change His Spots," a sequel to "Silence and Sword," for John Robey's The Reclamation Project: Year Two anthology.

5. Submitted "Snug and Tight" to Armoured Fox Press' Mamano Menagerie anthology.

Things in the Works:

1. Still working on "Marty 2: The Search for Pants" (working title!), my sequel to the RVA side story "I Fought the Claw, and the Claw Won." After sitting moribund for a while, I finally seem to have gained some momentum on this project, and I'm hoping to finish it and send it out to beta readers before the end of January.

2. Began work on an untitled Big Eyes, Small Mouth RPG supplement, to be published under their Open Gaming License. I intend this to be a mashup of the Red Vixen Adventures and For Your Safety universes, letting the Groupmind be the setting's big mystery, while the PC's fight space pirates, unscrupulous Kinis businessmammals, and help romantically tangled foxen.

This is going to be a big project, and I'm likely going to be running a small Kickstarter campaign once the manuscript is finished to pay for the illustrations, and so I can hire a proper copy editor and someone who knows typesetting better than I do to make sure it meets Dyskami Press's standards.

3. Untitled story for Thurston Howl's Furmiliar Spaces anthology. I'm signed up to provide a story for the "Beach" setting, though everything is still in the early planning stages.

4. At the encouragement of Thurston Howl, I submitted The Visitors and The Complete Red Vixen Adventures to The Furry Book Review for, er, a review. Hopefully they'll have something nice to say about them both.

Disappointments:

1. My Patreon. I lost several high value patrons, and I honestly can't blame them for ditching me, given I struggled to provide content for them. I'm still getting a few bucks a month, so I'm trying to keep it going, but it's never going to be a significant source of income.

2. Armoured Fox Press still hasn't completed editing on their Swordmasters anthology, where "To Catch the Lightning" awaits its formal debut. Given, well, 2020, I'll have to give Tarl some slack on this.

3. Also thanks to Covid, my hopes of having Tarl buy more of my paperbacks, especially The Visitors, to sell at AFP's table at the Fur, Eh? convention were dashed. Maybe I'll have better luck in 2021.

4. Reviews, or lack thereof. While The Furry Book Review has some kind words to say about the stories I had published in several anthologies, I've only gotten two reviews this year of my self-published works on Amazon. In particular I've received no reviews of The Visitors despite it being my best seller this year.

In Summary:

Overall, not my best year in terms of sales, but I've continued to publish on my own and have stories bought and published for anthologies. We'll see if I can improve things in 2021.

I had a really good year, and I'm not exactly sure why.

To put things in perspective, I made $333.15 this year on overall sales. But I can't even claim that it's because I had a really good publishing year. I didn't publish anything new in 2019, except in anthologies with other authors.

I can't claim it's been my social media presence either. I tweet occasionally, but I don't have many followers. I'd like to think it was from Armoured Fox Press' featuring my paperbacks at Fur, Eh except that was held in mid-June and my biggest month for sales was in April (34 units) and May (26 units), though there was another bump in August (21 units). It wasn't any glowing reviews either. I had a grand total of two, one of which while nice, also wasn't  terribly articulate. If my success was from word of mouth, I don't know whose mouth has been doing the talking.

Overall my best seller was Rise of the Ring at 29 units total. That I can at least make a guess at its popularity, given it's got a glowing blurb on the front cover courtesy of Ryk Spoor.  In terms of profitability, my most successful book was The Complete Red Vixen Adventures, which is my most expensive ebook and paperback. After that was Rise of the Ring, Prisoners of War, and Prisoner of Midnight.The latter two are both pR0n (hey, sex sells #captainobvious) and also available in paperback, though oddly PoM didn't sell any paperback copies through Amazon (more on that later) even though it had great physical sales last year. Honorable mention goes to Captive of the Red Vixen, which actually sold twice as many audiobooks (8) as ebooks (4), though sales of the various sequels was anemic. My best guess is people who enjoyed Captive decided to go for the best deal possible and read all the followups in the CRVA.

Aside from sales, I also did my best to spread my wings by submitting stories to various furry anthologies published by Armoured Fox Press and Furplanet. There I had a lot of success. Out of four tries I got three hits, two of which were published this December and the other (plus one I'd sold in 2017) should be coming out in 2020. The big one is probably Silence and Sword for John Robey's Reclamation Project Year One anthology, which was published by Furplanet, one of the biggest of the Furry genre of publishers.

Also, as I mentioned earlier I had paperback books purchased by Tarl Hoch's Armoured Fox Press imprint for sale at the Fur, Eh convention in Edmonton, Canada. This was an experiment for us both. I'd never sold my books to a dealer before, and Tarl didn't know how well my books would do. In terms of profit I think it was a wash for both of us overall. The cost for me to print the books and ship to Canada meant I lost about $80. Meanwhile Tarl unloaded most of the two Prisoners books, but only had a few sales for the CRVA. Overall I'm not surprised by the latter. It's a thick book, and expensive enough not to be a quick impulse purchase. So I guess we'll both have to live and learn (and stick to the cheaper novellas).

In the pipeline for 2020: I'm on the home stretch with my long gestating First Contact novella "The Visitors", which I hope to publish in the first quarter this year, editing gods and Neziha's art schedule willing. After that it'll be time to work on my other First Contact novel set in my Groupmind 'verse, which has been stalled for some time. I'm also going to continue to submit to anthologies as the opportunity arises.

So, some good sales and some experimentation led to a pretty solid year for me sales wise, even though I didn't publish anything directly. We'll have to see what 2020 will bring. 

Short Stories

“A Brief Distraction,” Foxers or Fur-iefs? Armoured Fox Press, November 2019. (estimated)

“Cat Toy,” Purrfect Tails. Armoured Fox Press, February 2018.

“Gently Kept,” Trick or Treat: A Furry BDSM Anthology, Thurston Howl Publications, (pending.)

“Silence and Sword,” The Reclamation Project: Year One, FurPlanet, December 2019. (estimated)

“To Catch the Lightning,”  A Swordmaster’s Tale. Armoured Fox Press, December 2019. (estimated)

“The Watchtower,” This Book is Cursed. Armoured Fox Press, October 2018.

Print

Prisoner of Midnight. Self-Published, February 2019

Prisoners of War. Self-published, November 2016

The Complete Red Vixen Adventures. Self-published, May 2017

The Dragon’s Companion. Self-published, 2006 (Currently unavailable)

Unexpected Diversions. Self-published, 2009 (Currently unavailable) 

Ebooks

The Red Vixen Adventures

Captive of the Red Vixen, Self-published. March 2011

I Fought the Claw, and the Claw Won. Self-published. September 2013

Shadow of Doubt. Self-published. May 2016

Shadow of Her Sins. Self-Published. February 2014

Shadow of the Red Vixen. Self-published. November 2012

The Complete Red Vixen Adventures. Self-published. May 2017

The Red Vixen at Sea. Self-published. May 2017

For Your Safety

The Fall of Man: A For Your Safety Collection. Self-published. June 2016

For Your Safety. Self-published. July 2012

Mimsey’s Tale. Self-published. July 2013

Rise of the Ring: A For Your Safety Collection. Self-published. April 2018

Prisoners

Prisoner of Midnight. Self-Published. February 2019

Prisoners of War. Self-published. April 2011

The Dragon's Companion

Teal’s Bargain. Self-published. January 2011

Teal’s Choice. Self-published. January 2011

Teal’s War. Self-published. January 2011

The Dragon’s Companion. Self-published. January 2011

Others

Demon Eyes, Self-published. April 2011

Good Landing, Self-published. April 2011

Mimsey’s Tale. Self-published. July 2013

Triumvirate. Self-published. October 2011

Unexpected Diversions.  Self-published. February 2011

Magazine Articles

“Characters and Campaigns on Colony Worlds for GURPS Space”, Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, April 13th, 2001.

“Scrapyard Battles, Gadgeteering Entertainment for GURPS Discwold”,Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, December 13th, 2002.

“Supporting Cast, Deacon Paul, Bioroid Rights Activist for Transhuman Space”, Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, September 26th, 2003.

“Terra Incognita, Mog the Half-Orc’s Pit Fighting Circle”, Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, October 3rd, 2003.

“The Dustmaster, Road Trains for Transhuman Space”, Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, December 9th, 2005.

“Weird Prisons as Campaign Settings”,Pyramid Online, Steve Jackson Games, August 10th 2001.