The Fun of the Uninformed…

And Sadly, They Know How To Type Letters to Me…

I have no problem at all with questions on most topics, mostly writing and publishing. And I have no real issues about what people think of me. I’ve been in this business for over fifty years. Seen some amazingly stupid things and did a few of them myself along the way.

But today I got a letter from someone who seemed to have an issue with me (again which is fine) but his issue was how can I make a living with my fiction when clearly my Amazon sales numbers are so low and my author ranking is so low. He was actually angry at me.

I have made zero bones about the fact that I think Amazon is screwed up, and on the scale of things, it might be eighth or ninth largest income stream. Down from 7th for a time. It is an okay bookstore, but honestly we pay it little attention.

The sales around the world in its many regions and countries are nice to get, but again also minor.

But to so many early stage writers who have not yet learned how to think outside the myth, Amazon is the only thing. (Really sad if you are putting your work into the AI cesspool called Select.)

And then this uninformed person got even madder at me for claiming in my bio I have sold over 35 million copies of my books. (Actually I am fairly certain that number is very low, but I am too lazy to total up a new one.)

This guy didn’t seem to understand I had been writing and selling for over 50 years and sold my first novel 40 years ago next year. (1987) So first let me deal with his inability to imagine a long-term writing career and how things build up over time.

Kris and I had one Star Trek book we wrote (out of the 35 I wrote with and without her) that sold over two million paperbacks and put us on the New York Times extended list. And we wrote the 10th Kingdom that was the NBC miniseries and that sold millions. And those are two major sellers we can claim as examples that had our names on them. (I wrote under a ton of pen names in those years.)

Thirty-five million is low, of that I have no doubt.

So let me get out of the old traditional days and move to today with some numbers and why we pay little attention to Amazon.

Earlier this month I did a small Kickstarter for my collections that I am using to round up 500 or so of my short stories. (Surveys just sent out.) I put in 15 collections (150 stories) as both regular awards, stretch goals, and extras in a Featured award.

So here is the math on this small Kickstarter for short story collections only.

We got to $5,748 which I was very happy with from 92 backers.

We will get $5,200 after Kickstarter fees sometime next week.

The cost to produce the paper and hardbacks will be $650 leaving $4,550 in income for the electronic books.

All backers will get 10 collections and another 50 or so will get 15 collections, so just for easy math, let me say that all 92 backers will get 15 collections because some other misc books sold.

So in the 9 days of this campaign, I sold 1,380 books. And after I send out those books to the backers, the collections will be up for preorder on all sites and our Shopify stores. And then for sale wide for years to come.

So I made in 9 days for 1,380 collections sold, $3.30 per book.

In 9 days… And that was for a small campaign with just science fiction collections.

Last year (in 2025) we did over $100,000 in profits (not gross) from Kickstarters and the year before over that amount by a ways. And that was a lot of books sold. A lot.

And Kickstarter is not our top or even second cash stream. As I have said many times, Kris and I make most of our money each year on licenses.

Of course, the uninformed angry guy challenging me because of my Amazon rankings wouldn’t know a copyright, a trademark, or a licensed right if it bit him.

But those of you who backed the campaign we did in February got four writing books tonight. Grab the ADVANCED MAGIC BAKERY 2026 and read it first. It might open an eye or maybe two about copyright and licenses.

Problem with writing me uninformed angry letters is that I never answer them, but I do have this blog that four or five thousand people see.

Such fun.