I’m SO happy!

I just received a wonderful surprise in the mail.  A letter from Laura (my agent) with a royalty check for Gemma!  That’s right.  Gemma has earned back her advance.  Which totally flabbergasted me, since they didn’t have me go on tour or set up a bunch of press or anything.  So, despite Tooraj and Laura’s kindness in trying to beat the drum for Gemma, I was feeling a little blue about the whole thing.  Sad, like Gemma had found a home, but she only got to eat a bowl of oatmeal for sustenance. 

But no!  More of you discovered Gemma.  Read her story.  Took her into your hearts. 

So happy.

Hard to believe, but including the sales from when I released it before, this little book has sold over 23,000 copies! 

Now, for you movie people out there, you might think 23,000 copies, that’s peanuts.

Nope.  In the book world 23,000 is quite respectable.  Especially considering that out of the odd 1,500,000 books that are out there on the shelves, only 1.68% sell 5,000 or more a year. 

Thank you to all of your for supporting Gemma and me.  xo

Now, all I have to do is decide which charity I want to send the royalty check to.  This is the fun part. 

Oh, also, for those of you who didn’t know, Gemma is also available in Large Print.  You can check and see your local independent book store carries it.  If not, they can order it for you, or you can get it from Amazon.com.  I mention this because I am at the point where the print in some books is getting hard to read, and so if you are like me, or a little further along in the aging process you might find that Large Print books are a happy invention. 

I really like the cover they did for the Large Print copy.  I wish I had a PDF of it so I could put it up on my site. 

Okay, I’m off to my writing.  kc dyer’s dragon fly wishes at the start of the summer really worked and I’m around 3 weeks away from having a first draft on a new middle grade manuscript, maybe closer.  My adult manuscript is resting with Laura, not sure what its fate is going to be.  I try not to think about it too much, or I’ll tie myself up in worry knots.  Breathe in, breath out.  One step in front of the next, write one sentence and then the next, and before I know it, I have another possible novel sitting in a hopeful pile of pages on my desk.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, September 09, 2010 in Bits and Pieces