Wacky things: I was looking at the royalty statement that turned up today (someday I'll earn out my advance, someday!), and saw a line for "Additional Earnings: Translation - Russian/adv on signing".

I now have an email out to my agent, asking about this. Russian translation? ZOMG WHAT?

That's ... weird. I've sometimes gotten payments for those things out of the blue (like a Portuguese publisher buying rights to one of the romances, usually for something really small like $300) but those were in situation where my publishers owned the foreign rights, and was selling them.

I'm just not getting why you're seeing it on your royalty statement if you never got a payment, unless in your contract they're accounting those earnings in with your advance.

I'm not explaining it well, but your agent will know.

Also? The Neil Gaiman quote on your Tumblr is excellent, and so true. Something we should all remember.

but those were in situation where my publishers owned the foreign rights, and was selling them.

Hmmm. I have to look at my contract again, but I have a vague memory of my publisher owning foreign rights. (Now I really want German and Japanese versions of GCS!)

Also? The Neil Gaiman quote on your Tumblr is excellent, and so true. Something we should all remember.

It's way too big to get as a tattoo, dammit. Otherwise I would.

That is an awesome quote, Jilli, and one I should remember especially now, when the hormone demons are keeping up a constant chant of not good enough, not good enough, not good enough...

For those of you not on Tumblr:

"Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.

Tarantino - you can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’.

There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."

I love that.

For those who hate the serial/Oxford comma, an online tutorial. With some literary commentary.

From io9, The Ten Types of Writer's Block.

oh Toddson. Thank you. hahahahaha.

Double-checking my contract does reveal that my publisher is the one who handles translation sales. My agent was also a bit surprised, and has emailed my editor for more exciting details.

Tonight, I get to do some research and write up a few paragraphs explaining why a German translation deal for GCS is a REALLY GOOD IDEA. (My agent says publishers love being given that sort of information, and that numbers are especially good.)