Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop!

Today’s topic is: What did you do with your first book “paycheck?”

And remember to pay a visit to my fellow writers to see what they have come up with. You can find their works here!

As we speak, typing up this post I am sitting on my throne, built from the many, many stacks of cash my book has made for me. I am wearing pure silk pyjamas and typing this on a 24-carat gold laptop, looking out the window at my Lamborghini and checking the time on my obnoxiously large watch.

Of course, I am not. I might even say I wish I was, but that’d be a lie. A watch is all about telling the time, not being big. I’d likely be arrested or dead if I owned a ridiculous supercar, and I don’t think I’d want ridiculous silk pyjamas. You see, even if I was a bestseller like Stephen King, I’d loathe and detest that level of ostentatiousness. I’d much rather spend it on Lego. Now there’s an idea, I could buy a bigger house so I could have a garden office specifically for writing, and a room or two just to house all my Lego!

But I digress. You see, My book hasn’t made me millions. Far from it. In fact, if I were to work out all the costs of getting it edited, designed, typeset, and printed, plus all the other associated costs of being a writer, I am probably still down on my investment. So what did I do with my first payout from my book? It’s really rather boring. I held it in a savings account. In part, this was so I could pay the relevant tax on it if it made enough money in the tax year, which it didn’t. But better safe than sorry. You see, I work full time as well, so I wanted to hold on to the takings so if I did need to do a tax return, I’d have my money ready.

But once it became clear I didn’t need to do that, it still sits in a savings account. This is so that once book two is completed, whenever that may be, then I should have a pot of money ready to help with costs once again. It also means I have an expenses pot set to one side for those as-and-when costs that come with being an author.

You see, I never embarked on writing Chasing Shadows to make money. Don’t get me wrong, if I could be as prolific, successful and well-paid as the Stephen Kings and Neil Gaimans of the world, I’d love it. But I wrote the book to prove to myself I could, to actually do it. Now that there is a second book in the offing, it’s still not all about the money. Obviously, I hope that two books will generate more money than one, and gain a bit more recognition. But once again, it really is a simple pursuit – I think I have a story, possibly a good one, I don’t know, and I want to tell it. Whatever happens beyond that is all part of the adventure.