Wednesday, January 01, 2014

2013 in review


41 acceptances (vs. 63 in 2012)

8 rejections (vs. 25 in 2012)

45 short stories published* (vs. 66 in 2012), 0 articles/essays published (vs. 0 in 2012)

I completed 40 short stories (vs. 46 in 2012).

I completed (to final draft) 142,500 words of short fiction (vs. 150,500 in 2012).

That's an average story length of 3,563 words (vs. an average of 3,272); the shortest story was 600 words, the longest was 6,200 words.

I completed and submitted an average of .77 of a short story each week (vs. an average of .88 each week in 2010).

(I only track completed short fiction word counts, not words written for incomplete projects, nor words written for other forms of writing.)

Income from
Editing: Up 1.55%
Fiction (not novels): Down 3.3%
Non-Fiction (not books): $0
Royalties from Fiction (from traditionally published and, beginning in 2010, from self-published work): Down 61.47%%
Royalties from Non-Fiction: Up 13.14%
Seminars/Teaching/Tutoring:  Up from $0
Salary: Up 1.31%
Overall gross income: Down .75%

Observations:

My short story productivity has diminished for the second year in a row and is the lowest it's been for the five years I've been tracking it.

I continue to sell more than I write, which in past years has been thanks to a large number of previously written stories finding homes. That stockpile is rapidly diminishing. This year I've sold more than I've written thanks to placement of a few reprints.

My fiction income, though down, was an insignificant change. My income from royalties, however, was significant and attributable primarily to diminished sales of self-published material offered through Amazon. The majority of this material is reprints for which I have previously been paid so any extra it earns is icing on the cake. Even so, that sales dropped so far is disheartening. (I'll explore this more later in the year after I have my December reports from Amazon.)
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*Updated 1/21/14. I may update this information later; I may have had additional stories published but have not yet received my contributor copies.

1 comment:

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Royalties is very disturbing. One would think it might fluctuate a little bit, but that is a huge drop.