Musical Hanukkah Wrap-Up

In the past, when I’ve done a Musical Hanukkah wrap-up post, I’ve let Chelle handle it. Since I took the fun into the real world, I figured Chelle had no business reporting on how well (or poorly, depending on your point of view) we all chipped in to do.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m disappointed. I was hoping to do better. Now, I have to keep in mind that November and December turned into a couple of rough months for me. Most of you know I lost my cat, Chanterelle, in mid-November. One post can’t sum up the brain freeze THAT saga inspired. And now that I have an only cat, things on the feline front are getting more frustrating — I’d like to be a foster parent for awhile, but while the shelter I’d like to work with has a great woman heading up the fostering program, the head of volunteering hasn’t been quite so friendly. In fact, he’s been downright hostile, refusing to reassure me I’m in the system and will get the e-mail telling me when and how to sign up for the first of the volunteer orientations I must take. Needless to say, I’m frustrated. So’s Cooper. He’s lonely, and guess who has become his replacement family member?

It ain’t the stuffed grizzly bear the kids gave him.

The cat NEEDS a feline friend. I am not a feline. Period.

There were some other things holding me back, as well. Personal stuff. It really ought to stay that way.

This means I didn’t get to promote the Musical Hanukkah Celebration nearly as much as I’d intended to. And… it shows.

In the two months I was counting royalties for my charity donation, I sold a total of 44 books, spread out over the three titles. There were no sales reported for the Apple bookstore, B&N, Sony, or Kobo or Diesel. Thus, these numbers are restricted to Smashwords, Lulu, and Kindle.

We have to immediately erase the 7 books I sold at my local temple, during a signing. I told the temple I’d donate part of my royalties from that back to them, since they are a charitable organization.

Now we’re down to 37 books. Which isn’t bad, given how little promotion I wound up doing (oddly, most of my previous promotional jaunt happened in October!). Nice, big, fat donation, here I come!

But… 24 of those books came from Smashwords. And of them, 20 were freebies — copies of Trevor’s Song I handed out for reviews, downloads from the Troops as part of Operation e-Book Drop.

So I am making a donation based on the royalties for 13 books. Ouch. That’s not much more than I sold in the Kindle store in the entire month of December.

All told, the royalties I brought in came to $34.35. I’d pledged at least 50% — the more money I brought in and the more of my year’s expenses that were covered was going to up that percentage — and that leaves me with a donation of $17.25. About the same as I raised in three weeks in January for the Red Cross.

Yeah, I wish it had been more. Hopefully the momentum ball will roll faster in 2011. I’m aiming to give you TWO books and hopefully some 99c shorts (Anyone want to do me a cover or two?). And I’ve finished three interviews this week alone — and a fourth popped into my inbox this morning.

Now, before I sign off with pleas for you to post reviews of my books (good OR bad) and tell others to buy them, let me remind you that the page for direct donations is still up, if you’ve got some extra change you’d like to throw toward the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. Tomorrow’s Band Geek or Orchestra Dweeb thanks you. And so do I.

Since only one of you took me up on my offer to win a free book if you made a direct donation, Shaunie gets a copy of Thomma Lyn Grindstaff‘s Mirror Blue.

Why that one, and not one of the others? Well, because Thomma Lyn, being optimistic that there would be a million and one donations, sent me a copy. It’s here at my right elbow, so as much as it pains me to not read it, I’ll be sending that one on.

Now. I’m off to write a book. Or edit a book. Or something book related so that when next year comes and we do it again, we can donate a bigger chunk of change.