Welcome friends, to the 87th quarterly Melissa Lion Non-Royalties Post. Every quarter I get a statement from my agent explicitly detailing my non-royalties. It tells me how many books I’ve not sold. It’s a little like the time my high school boyfriend sent me a letter in college where he outlined his erect penis, but different.

No, this love letter has a bunch of numbers and my book titles next to them and then at the bottom of a complicated subtraction equation, it says in bold print: UNEARNED BALANCE. This is part of the romance of being a published novelist. I KNOW! Perhaps this is why, when people tell me they want to be writers, I stare at them with this expression:

I would also like to say that it’s 3:40am and I can’t sleep because I might or might not be planning what amounts to a party for 160 people on Wednesday and that’s a little bit of pressure. (BUY TICKETS NOW.) And to see this or this in my hunt for Homer Simpson images is a little…I don’t know… makes me want to say, “Oh internets, you so craaaaaaaaaaaazy!” And then bathe my brain in bleach. That’s do-able right? Wait…let me google it.

Okay, so my UNEARNED BALANCE on Swollen is $2,566.48 and on Upstream is $1,748.50.

What I need is to sell approximately 2,000 copies of Swollen and 1,500 copies of Upstream in order to earn out my advance. And then, after that, I can start earning royalties and we can have a celebration but not a big one, because they’re royalties, which is the equivalent of a kiss after a reach around. I KID, RANDOM HOUSE — HAHAHAHAHLOLHAHAHAHAH!!!!1!!!!!!!#!!!!!

That means, each of you, needs to buy 1000 copies of my books. Not really, more like 800.

It’s actually not that many when you think about America and how many people know how to read in this country. So, maybe we can start an internet revolution, kinda like Stoogiepie did for Crissy when she wooped Dooce’s ass on the hottest Mommy blogger award. GO CRISSY! Crissy then took a nekkid picture of herself because that was the deal and you can find that supa-hot picture on Crissy’s blog if you follow that link above. Maybe I can be persuaded to make a picture of myself if I start earning a royalties on my books. What???

Buy Swollen here. And Upstream here.

And yes, those are links to Barnes and Noble.

Thank you and good night.