“Why? What are you doing?”
I find her on Amazon.AuthorAugust Winslow. So precious. So…prolific.
Steadily, I add every single one of her paperbacks to my cart and murmur, “Obtaining research.”
Like any goodsecretly evilmale lead should.
Chapter 5
?
Dare I say, the plot thickens.
August
I…am rich.
Baffled, I stare at my Kindle Direct Publishing Dashboard, or more specifically I start at theover a hundredsales it’s reporting. It has to be a glitch. Except…it’s a very odd glitch, if it is. Sometimes, Amazon will lag, and I’ll see an odd uptick, but it never lags likethis.
Moving to the Orders tab, I discover that not only is thisevery single oneof my books, but it’s alsonotthe ebooks. Someone has ordered one of all one hundred twenty-six of my novels…in paperback.
That’s over two thousand dollars in market value.
“They spent overtwo thousanddollars,” I whisper, aloud, to see if it sounds any more or less real in audio. Over two thousand dollars for them and nearly eight hundred in royalties for me.
A violent shudder rocks my whole entire body, and I gulp.Whoin their right mind…
Maybe Mirabelle did this?
Shedidjust marry a billionaire last month, but we don’t exactly see each other all that often and there’s no real reason for her to decide to support me likethisall of a sudden if she hasn’t previously. Still, she’s the only reader I can think of who’d have this much disposable income and know who I am…
It occurs to me that I’ve just ordered a casket for approximately the same amount of money, and I certainly don’thave what I’d call thedisposable incomefor it. I merely had a savings. And a whim.
Maybe someone else with a savings and a whim found my work and resonated with it enough to make an impulse decision like this?
Even though I’m not interested in building a career out of my writing, I do have a tiny pool of readers who have found me one way or another through organic algorithms and my publishing frequency. Despite not focusing on cultivating this into a career, I do know a thing or two about placing myself well enough in SEO, so even with muddy genres and unclear branding, each book is positioned for its genre with applicable keywords and a polished blurb.
It’s not impossible that someone new found me and decided to splurge.
It’s just…uncanny.
Especially given how convoluted my backlist is.
Hopefully it’s not a mistake that gets returned in a few days. I think seeing the negative income would gut me regardless of if it’s just my Dashboard balancing back out or not.
Anyway, whatever happens, I guess it’s not really in my control.
So I should focus on whatis.
Today, 10:24 a.m.
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Unsolicited anime recommendation
Ali:
