Wow … what a pleasant surprise!

I knew it was about time to receive a royalty check, but I honestly wasn’t holding my breath expecting much at all.  My new publisher had been withholding 90%(!) of my royalties each pay period as a guarantee against “returns.”

“Returns” in the publishing biz are when retail stores order more books than they can sell, so they return the ones they don’t want cluttering up their back rooms — royalties aren’t paid on “returns” so the publisher needs to have enough in reserve to cover any returns.  And yes, before anyone asks, I’d called the publisher numerous times over the years and talked this whole thing over ad nauseum with them and with IP (Intellectual Property) experts and attorneys.  It’s all legal and meets with the vague stipulations about reserves/returns in my contract.

It was more than  a little frustrating whenever I’d read my royalty statements, because it would say that my books had zero(!) returns.  So they were holding out 90% of my royalties for reserves against returns, but then getting zero returns.  More than a little bit aggravating. 

Anyway, so much for your lesson in Publishing 101. 

So, to keep a long story a little shorter, I opened my royalty statement expecting the usual tiny check … but instead of being puny, it was ten(10!) times bigger than what I’d expected!  Turns out the publisher has finally started releasing reserves against returns from previous pay times.

I honestly was starting to think I’d never see those withheld reserves — but I guess the reserves from the past are going to start coming in now.  Very, very exciting!  And it couldn’t have come at a better time (although I wish I’d been getting the full payments all along … it would’ve made a huge difference the past two years).

So, today’s big “Thankful” thing is getting a decent royalty check and seeing some of those reserves being released.