Last month R.T. Lawton did a piece crunching the numbers on his 51 stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. I thought it would be fun to do the same thing with my more modest collection, especially since "Professor Pie is Going to Die" arrived this week in the May/June issue. "Pie" is #43 and there is another novella awaiting publication, so my current total is 44.
R.T. made his first sale to AHMM in 2001. I made mine in 1981 so not only has he sold more but he did it in a much shorter time. He has made $21,376 while my stories earned $16,415. His stories average out to 5,065 words while mine come in at 4,280, with a meridian of 3,400 words. (I tend to write very short, but a few novellas bump up the mean considerably.)
I am doing far worse than R.T. on percentage of stories sold: 94 rejections give me a sale percentage of 32%. Under the current editor, Linda Landrigan, I have been hitting 54.4%, which may have to do with her preferences but I hope is also because I have improved as a writer.
R.T. also has more AHMM reprints to his credit than I do, but that depends on how you calculate them.
Here's the easy way to figure mine:
Black Cat Weekly: $50
Japanese Mystery magazine: $350
However, I also self-published a book, Shanks on Crime. I lost a couple of hundred bucks on it, but then a Japanese publisher bought the rights to translate it and paid me $3,600. Nine of the fourteen stories were from AHMM so: 3,600 x 9/14 = 2,324.
But, wait! There's more. The book sold well enough in Japan that the publisher decided to put out a book of my otherwise uncollected stories, five of which were from AHMM. So: $3,600 x 5/9 = 2,000.
Since those books were published they have earned some royalties and the percentage from AHMM stories turns out to be $585.
Which brings us to:
AHMM: $16,415
Reprints: $400
Japanese books: $4,909
Total: $21,714
That's for 43 years worth of work. You will notice R.T. is still ahead of me. He would probably agree that it's a slow way to get rich. But I've had fun.
As someone with a grand total of six AHMM stories, Rob, I bow to both you and R.T. as models I doubt I'll ever live up to, but I appreciate the inspiration. How did the reprint in the Japanese magazine come about?
ReplyDeleteOnly ten plus two translations for me. Bravo, Rob and R.T.!
ReplyDeleteHow nice about the Japanese sales. It is fun to see one's work in Japanese characters!
ReplyDeleteIt sure is. Google translated my last name from Japanese to Lopalesiti, or something like that. Since I suffer from paralytic monolingualism I have no business complaining.
DeleteSigh, that was me.
DeleteCongratulations!
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of information we ignore when we're starting out. After we're committed (from the age of 9 or perhaps earlier), it's too late to go back. Congrats on making sales and getting real money for them.--Susan Oleksiw
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Rob and R.T.! Both have me beat. I've currently stalled out at 30 with AHMM, but I have hopes that someday...
ReplyDeleteHow DID you crack the Japanese market? I've got a Chinese fan who translates my stuff in Shanghai, but no money there...
Never made that much money, despite cracking over 1,000 self-published sales on Kindle and Audible.
ReplyDeleteA heck of a lot more self-published sales than I have made.
DeleteRob, you and R.T. have me beat also, and by a long way. I have 27 stories at AHMM. My wordcount average is about the same as R.T.'s, and--like you--some of my income from AH has come after the fact (reprints, film options, etc.). Three of my stories there were published by Cathleen Jordan and the rest by Linda Landrigan. Enjoyed this post!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this. A fun analysis and stats. Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteDaniel C. Bartlett
You've got me beat too. Only four sales to AHMM, three of them ran within a one-year period from 2020 - 2021. I had one Japanese reprint (not of an AHMM story), but it was for a company that worked with students learning English, so they only wanted to reprint part of the story. I guess I used a lot of useful words. Kind of odd, but the money was good, so no complaints from me!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how things work out. One writer has more story sales, another has more awards/nominations. The key is to cooperate and not get jealous of what we don't have, I guess. The mystery field seems pretty good about that.
DeleteIt does.
DeleteRob, I was surprised and flattered to find my name in your SleuthSayer's blog article this morning. Thanks for the shout out and the comparisons. The only reason I found my story in the Japanese Mystery Magazine was because they wanted to reprint my Edgar winning short story, "The Road to Hana." Working with their publisher was an interesting experience.
ReplyDeleteI have made several writer friends along the way, and hope that I have paid back or paid forward at least enough too compensate for what I have received over the years.
When it comes to reprints, 7 of my 9 trade paperback collections available on Amazon have AHMM reprints in them, but I didn't count them in the reprint category. As the British tv comedian Benny Hill used to say in some of his skits, "Learning, always learning." What worked for me? I tried to keep several stories going in at least seven different series, plus standalones, with three submissions in the AHMM e-slush pile at any given time. Find what the editor likes and then concentrate on that for a while. Good luck and best wishes to you all.
Thanks for the comments, R.T.
DeleteMy first is coming out on June 10. Glad to see I've got something to look forward to!
ReplyDeleteWow. Have you managed to stay out so far? I would expect you to have been a regular.
DeleteFrom these comments and others I have received it seems like there is interest in my Japanese publishing journey, so I willw rite more about that next week. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteRob, con-grat-u-lations!
ReplyDelete