My first book came out two years ago. Many books come out each year, but this one was mine, dammit, and I was excited! I wanted to tell cool stories, do crazy things, and make magic happen.  I didn’t know if anyone would read my work—I mean, I had high hopes, but those and two bits won’t buy you a coke these days unless you go to Sam’s Club and that’s too much tangent for even me to sustain.

A few weeks ago, this came in the mail.

Nothing on this check matters except for that little “Roy” in the memo line.  These are royalties for Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise, which means those books have earned out of their advance.  This is amazing news.  Let me write that on its own line.

This is amazing news.

The general accepted wisdom on advances (as I’ve heard it anyway) is that if you earn out, great!  But you shouldn’t expect to earn out—the advance is the only money you should ever count on receiving.

So, earning out is a Big Thing, folks.  It means my publisher was justified in the risk they took on the first books, and will be more likely to want to publish more, which is great, because I have more stories to tell, in the Sequence and out of it.  But this isn’t really a thing I’ve done, so much as a thing you all have done.  Everyone who read the books, who reviewed them, who bought copies for their friends, who checked them out of the library, who came to a signing or said hi at a convention—thank you so much.  I love this job, and I can only do it because you care, because you read, and because you spread the word.

Also in this cool vein: my story A Kiss with Teeth landed in Some of the Best from Tor.com, a Tor.com reader poll listed Full Fathom Five as one of the best books of 2014, and then their critical roundup included it as well!

Here is an animated .gif to express my feelings about my readers:

Happy holidays, y’all.