Like all the other cool agents with blogs or on Twitter, I’m dealing with royal(tie)s. No dashing princes for me, these royalties, as you probably know already, are the accounting statements prepared by publishers that tell of the sales of an author’s book in the previous period. Right now, most of us are looking at statements for the six-month period ending on June 30th.
As always, it’s been interesting. I had an author’s book earn out in the first sales period, so they got a check immediately. In my head, I made a note to ask for more money for their next contract!
Another book was only on sale for about 7 weeks before the end of the period, but did really well in those few weeks. Yay!
At the same time, royalty period always reminds me that I’m a Word person, not a Numbers person. I imagine most authors would consider themselves Word people with me, but I’ve been wrong before. High school calculus was a class to be dreaded, particularly when my math major sister wasn’t home to help me with my homework. But at the same time, I get a certain thrill of satisfaction nw in making the numbers work for my business, and confirming that my authors are getting paid what they should.
What skill do you exercise now that you would have never imagined would be part of your skill set?
9 thoughts on “Dealing with Royal(tie)s”
Number-crunching, actually! I've always been a words person (my brother was the super-genius math person), but my parttime day job is bookkeeping. AND — get this — I actually ENJOY calculating the payroll taxes. (I'm sick, I know. Maybe it's because the answer is always right or wrong, with very little gray area?)
Math. I tried to find a university degree that required absolutely no math what-so-ever. Turns out even physical education requires math, especially if you take biomechanics or decided to get a Masters of Science degree in exercise physiology. Who knew!
I deal with numbers at work, so much so that I feel like I'm in the Matrix! Still, I think I'm going to let my mother handle my money-lol.
Writing! While growing up, it was an undisputed fact that my sister could write, my brother could sing and I could draw, but I always had a sneaking suspicion that my brother and sister could draw, too. It was (is) obvious that I couldn't (can't) sing, but it never occurred to me that I could write. When my husband and I moved to the other side of the planet for a few years I started keeping a journal. It slowly dawned on me that I could, indeed, write. What a surprise!
French. Ha!
I guess I don't really have any skills I'm surprised are in my skill set, but it always does shock people that I can write. Engineers aren't supposed to know grammar or be able to write. Strangely enough, all my friends in liberal arts send their papers to me to be proof read.
I wish I was better at basic math. You want me to Laplace something? I'm totally there. You want a differential equation solved? Give me a call. You want to me to balance your check book by hand? Woah – woah. Isn't that what Excel is for? The last time someone asked me to add two numbers I pulled out my TI-89. Isn't this why we invented calculators? To do basic math?
Science. I made the mistake-slash-genius-move to incorporate oodles of science into the Stream Pirate world. Makes for fun world-things, but now as I'm trying to hammer out sequels, I find myself begrudgingly having to research rivers and sediment erosion and other such geology stuffs. Luckily, I have a good friend who is a geology major. I may be calling upon her to fact-check for me. Oddest thing ever: "Can you fact check my YA fantasy novel to make sure all of my geology issues are correct? kthanks."
Writing is my calling! My sister was given the math genius gene. Too bad she's much younger than I am, otherwise I'd go to her for help.
Oh Daphne, I am sooo with you regarding numbers. I never even made it to Calculus. Core Geometry was as far as I got in high school. (Which makes me wonder, how did I ever graduate?)
And now, as I wait tables, (And believe me, balancing plates is a whole other skill set I never thought I'd need!) I have to use math to make change and cash out my totals. It's so elementary, but it's really challenging for me.
The only part of math I like is counting cash. ; )