I received my third quarter royalty payment a few days ago. It amounted to $27.42. Adding this to the $34.23 and the $32.23 that Fast-Pitch Love brought to me in April and July, respectively, my total earnings from the book now total $93.76. It’s clear that writing is not going to bring me great riches. But a review of my royalty statement reveals some interesting facts about both my book and my publisher.

– I sold 24 books during the third quarter, giving me a total of 95 sales going back to the book’s release in early November 2014. This means that, on average, I make slightly less than $1 per book.

– The majority of my sales are made through Amazon. Barnes and Noble accounted for about eight or nine sales during the first quarter of the year, but since then my B&N numbers have fallen while my sales through iTunes have increased. I have also made a few sales through Overdrive, a Cleveland-based digital distributor of e-books, audiobooks, and music. Kobo is another online distributor that has my book, but apparently no sales have been made through this venue yet.

– The royalty statement has an official, professional appearance. My publisher’s address in Madison, Alabama is printed at the top along with the CEO’s e-mail address.The columns are neatly aligned; the numbers and words are easy to read. Originally Astraea Press, my publisher now does business as Clean Reads. The royalty statement features its new logo as well as its motto: “Great Stories, No Guilt.”

Anyone who looks over this statement will realize, as I did, that writing is not going to be my main source of income. Fortunately, I never expected that it would be. But it makes me realize the rarity, as well as the extraordinary talent, of authors who can make a living off their writing. Writers such as Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, and Nora Roberts are in a class by themselves. I will probably never be in that class. But I, like most authors, have my own reasons for writing that have nothing to do with making money. Still, that royalty arriving every three months is a nice little perk.