Good Things Come To Those With Buns of Steel

For sitting on while waiting, of course. The buns of steel, that is.

Today, we got our first teeny-tiny reimbursement check from Amazon for the sales of our Kindle edition of The Skeptical Juror and the Trial of Byron Case.  It's a beginning.

In furtherance of our purposes, nefarious and otherwise, we also signed up today for the Reporter Connection, and HARO (Help A Reporter Out, out of what they don't say). Both of these are connection sites that work by putting together reporters in search of expert sources, and sources in search of publicity.

So, who knows. We may come up with interviews or newspaper stories where The Skeptical Juror is the perfect expert.  We'll be watching our email!

In that vein, on July 20th, TSJ will be interviewed at 3pm, Pacific Daylight Time, on BlogTalkRadio, on the Women Behind the Wall show. It will be his first interview about the book. He'll be talking about Byron Case, and wrongful convictions in general. The host of the show, Gloria Killian, was herself wrongfully convicted and exonerated and released after 17 years in prison. The questions ought to be interesting!

Flying Times

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Happy Solstice to those who celebrate. 

It doesn't seem possible that half a year has passed since we published The Skeptical Juror and the Trial of Byron Case. Already! Holy cow. We just got our first publisher's compensation from the digital print house. Somewhere in the vicinity of 200 books are out there in the world, what with publicity copies we've ordered, and given to various and sundry folks.   Byron Case's mother is busy working to place them in book stores and libraries in Kansas City.

We should do that too,  I know.   Maybe when we have the second book available.

The other day I was wondering, if we donated copies of the book to a library, who assigns Dewey Decimal numbers to it? Is each library responsible for their own classifications or is there some giant master list somewhere. Seems like there has to be a master list, doesn't it? Otherwise how could interlibrary loans work?

I know, I could look it up. But instead I'm going to work on editing the next section of Cory Maye. We really want to get this puppy up and out by the end of July. That way we may have a fair chance of getting Susan B. Anthony published this year as well. Or #3 in the series. Not both, probably.   Turns out that writing and publishing books is a slower process than one would imagine, when one is a naive young (relatively speaking) author. 

Most people think they can write a book. Nearly all of them think writing is an easy way to make a living. Until they try it. Then only the real writers stick it out and finish a book. 

Before we turn around, it'll be Christmas and New Years. I'll try to post again before then. Really. 

We're RICH!!

Okay, not so much.

But we now have gotten to the other side of the whole process, the part where we actually have some publisher's compensation for The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Byron Case returned to us from the digital print house. It came in the mail today.

These are the returns for February, the first full month of publication. Wait, you say, it's friggin' June! Yep. They keep track of sales monthly, then delay sending a check until 90 days after the end of the month. I presume that's to accommodate those publishers that may have returns. Or they're just playing the float as long as they can. So this check wasn't cut until June 1. 

These are not all the books printed, of course. There must be 150 or so other copies floating about out there. We sent copies to friends, family, early readers, and some folks we wanted to review it. We sent cases to people who said they would be willing to publicize it.

And we've been selling at cost to Evelyn Case, allowing her to keep the profits and apply them to Byron's defense fund. Seems like the least we can do, at the moment.

Bottom line is we are doing a poor job marketing the book, and that is reflected in the sales. Nonetheless, we now have the excitement of receiving the first revenue for our hard work on this new venture. We have something to look back upon and say "Remember back when ..."

On the upside, the Cory Maye edits are going well. I like the way the deliberations are shaping up. Jury dynamics promise a lot of interesting byplay and tension. 

And once Cory Maye is published, we will do a better job of publicizing both that work and Byron Case. 

So we're not rich, except in experience. We'll get there.  Still not quitting the day jobs, though.