My mom had a stroke and a heart attack. PLEASE HELP ME GO SEE HER.

First of all, I wanted to thank all who donated WHILE I was writing this. I already got $780 from 24 backers, THANK YOU!!!

This post is sort of like a mini-fundraising campaign one would do on Kickstarter, but I'm doing it on my blog because I have no time.  Yesterday my cousin sent me a Facebook message that my mom, whom I just have seen on my trip to Russia to get my son back (a whole another story) has been admitted to the intensive care with both a heart attack and a stroke, and that her condition is bad. She is only 56. She can move her arms and legs, but her talk is slurry, and there is damage to vital organs, I don't know which, can't get through to the hospital. The only reason I got this message was because I actually have found my cousin in Moscow when I was there, after not seeing her for 9 years and having no contact at all. If I didn't insist on her opening a Facebook account, I wouldn't have known at all. I also had no contact with my aunt, and my half-sister is in Kiev, but I will spare you the rest of the family drama. The deal is, I only have enough savings to last me 5 more months, and my trip to get my son back home cut that an additional $3,000. I still have money, but it was supposed to cover 6 months of me writing my novel about growing up in Soviet Union, IRKADURA, and now I will have only about 4 months worth of savings left, after this trip, this includes the money I recently made with a short consulting gig. So... I'm asking you to help sponsor this trip to Moscow, so that I have adequate time to write IRKADURA, and so that hopefully I can leave some money behind for my mom and her recovery.

My mom's story. It's a very gruesome read, so if you'd rather skip it, go ahead and scroll down to the pledges and amounts. If you are still reading, the picture above is one of the few I have of my parents together, happy. It's a picture from their wedding album which I literally had to beg out/steal from my grandmother, several years before her death. If I wouldn't have, my father would've destroyed it. You see, my father and my mother hate each other, and I've never seen them happy together, this picture above, and my book ROSEHEAD, are my hopeless dreams to imagine them happy together. My mom was severely abused by her family, by father and grandfather sexually, by mother physically, as in, they beat her head on the floor until it got bloody. She tried to run away many times, and at last did, at 18, after meeting my father in the library. He was 35. He took her in, and in 3 weeks (my facts are blurry here, I can be off some years or dates) they got married. He turned out to be crazy in love with her, but also a violent and abusive husband, forcing her to have sex with him even when she was hurting. She told me they had it in the morning, then he came home from work for a lunch break, and then at night. She had a high libido as well, so she said she enjoyed it, at first. Whatever sexual problems my father has, I have yet to discover (collecting facts slowly), but he sexually abused me as well. It was not sex for pleasure, it was more like sexual torture, well, he did get aroused when he got into his anger fits, but in any case, my memories are blurry, so I don't know exactly how it transpired apart from what my  body tells me. Anyway, my father told me that my mother was a whore and that his goal was to root out those whoring tendencies from me as well. He also told me that I was crazy, because my mom was crazy. But she never was, she was simply suffering from extreme ADHD, PTSD, depression, suicidal tendencies, and a bunch of other stuff. She is a survivor. Okay, I'm realizing the whole story won't fit here. Fast forward many years. About my parents... My father is no monster, if you think so, we had good times too, and he's a writer as well, he taught me to love literature, but he has issues he never got over. My mother is no angel, in case you think so, but she is a survivor, and when she could, she showed me love (I was primarily raised by my grandmother). She took in my elderly grandmother and grandfather, when nobody would care for them (and this after they abused her when she was little)... well, not quite true, my cousin took care of them for a while, but being 20 something, she didn't have enough money herself... anyway, my mom ran herself ragged taking care of them. She has no money, she knits amazing dresses, but she is a starving artist. She is literally living below poverty level, and finally her body gave out. My goal was to get financially steady and bring her over here (I'm an American citizen, so I can do it), but I can't even send her paperwork, because she has no address, she lives on the outskirts of Moscow in a cabin-like house with no bathroom and an outhouse for a toilet. And I will stop here, because I can't type anymore, my hands are shaking, sorry. I was planning on writing a lot of this reality into IRKADURA.

GOAL: $3000 ($850 airplane, $150 transportation, $500 food/cash/phone, $1500 money for mom's recovery)

WHAT I WILL DO FOR YOUR DONATIONS:

• Pledge any amount. GILDED MOUSE: Depending on what platforms we are connected, I will tweet, Facebook, or Google+ a "thank you".
• Pledge $25 or more. COMFORTABLE CAT: All of the above, plus a handwritten "thank you" card in the mail.
• Pledge $50 or more. LOADED KOALA: All of the above, plus a 30 minute live chat on Google chat or Skype on any topic you wish.
• Pledge $100 or more. AFFLUENT SLOTH. All of the above, plus a 1 hour live writing lesson or a 1 hour live writing critique of your work.
• Pledge $250 or more. WEALTHY PANDA. Everything at the LOADED KOALA level, plus I will read your work, up to 10,000 words, and send you 1 page of detailed feedback.
• Pledge $500 or more. PROSPEROUS KANGAROO. Everything at the LOADED KOALA level, plus I will read your novel manuscript and send you 3 pages of detailed feedback.
• Pledge $1000 or more. RICH GIRAFFE. Everything at the LOADED KOALA level, plus a 2 hour personal meeting (provided you live in Seattle or in the bus vicinity). If you live further than Seattle, I will come out to you, if you pay for my travel and lodging expenses.

Also, you can buy a selection of Chuck Wendig's books (he graciously donated them) for $20, or you can buy original SIREN SUICIDES artwork from any chapter (just send me the chapter name, first come, first serve) for $50 each (my daughter graciously donated them). I have no time to set up these items in the shop, so please email me what art you want, and if you want Chuck Wendig's books.

Of course, you can also buy my books, that will help me greatly as well. 

I will start delivering on my promises on the first-come-first-serve basis and on my schedule permitting, so "thank you" mentions will come out as I have time and WiFi while traveling, everything else will be delivered by the time I'm back, starting November 1st. I have just finished writing 2nd Draft of ROSEHEAD, so the timing is good. I will keep track of everything myself, so please allow time for me to do it, but rest assured, I will get to you, as promised. 

I will also post updates on my mom, and on everything that is happening, all over social media, of course, and will post an update on the money goal here, in the comments, so you know what is happening and where your money is going.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT, I LOVE YOU!

Feel free to ask any questions on the comments, so I can provide a proper FAQ for you like any respected Kickstarter project does. 

Donations make me more money than book sales!

I've been reviewing my book sales numbers, to make sure I'm reporting every penny to the unemployment thingy (you're supposed to type in how much money you made when you file once a week - this week was my last), and was astounded to find that this year to date I actually made more money via donations as opposed to via book sales! Of course I tweeted about it, and Facebooked, and everything, and a bunch of folks asked me to blog about it in depth, so here you go. Today is a tough day for me, both because 9/11 tragedy shook me to the bone, and because 9/11 is my dad's birthday and I can't call him because he basically cut me out of his life about 4 years ago, when I confronted him about sexually abusing me. So, I refuse for this to pull me down into depression and I want to celebrate my achievement as a writer today, both in honor of 9/11 victims and in my personal victory over suicide, to celebrate life, and to celebrate my readers who are supporting me as an artist directly, something that is largely unheard of in the book publishing business. I honestly don't know where this is going, and I only have enough savings to last me another 6 months (my trip to Russia cut that down significantly), but I'll keep giving my ebooks away for FREE, and I will keep updating you on my crazy journey as a writer. Well then, without further ado, my money story.

Starting January 2013, I made $2,170, with 62% donations, 38% sales. I self-published the little book of my tweets, Blue Sparrow, on May 10th, so any money I made before that was purely donations, and they were supposed to sponsor my book signing trip that never happened. I got about $600 for that, and it's still reserved for it, once I have time and if I manage to make more money to actually afford a trip. So you can view this money report as if it's for 5 months, May - September. Of course, $2,170 is nothing is the big scope of things, and $2K is how much money I need a month to live on. But because I also spent money on purchasing physical books for my store, and for paying for this website, and paying for extended distribution rights, and various other services (like Batchbook where I track over 300 of my beta readers), plus shipping materials and shipping cost, which I grossly overestimated and ended up paying up to $30 for international shipping (where I only charge $15 for it), I ended up only making $163 of profit from that $2,170, which is, of course, not enough to live on. 

I sold 60 paperbacks on my site, 35 ebooks and 22 paperbacks on Amazon.  Since Blue Sparrow is just a little book of tweets, I'm not including it in this statistic. I self-published Siren Suicides on August 10th of this year, so, 1 month ago, and so far I don't know how many free ebooks have been downloaded from my site (have no way of tracking it - am looking into installing Google Analytics), but I have sold total 117 books. In 1 month. I know it's nothing, in terms of sales, but what's curious is the breakdown of how much I sold where. It turns out I sold more signed paperbacks from my site, as opposed to from Amazon. This month, now that I'm back from Russia and back into my routine, I will also upload Siren Suicides to other distribution channels, like Scribd and Kobo and such, for free. I will be able to track numbers there, and shall have more to report soon. But so far the trend is showing me that, one, I make more money via donations, and, two, I sell more books from my own store. Curious, eh?

Despite the fact that I'm giving ebooks away for free, people still buy them! This was the biggest concern of everyone when I told people I will be giving my books away for free. People asked, how exactly will you make money? Why are you doing this? You are crazy?!? Well, I explain in detail here why I'm doing this. But, look, I am starting to prove that I can make money while giving my books away for free, see? It's happened to the music industry. CD's became promotional material to be given away for free. People pay real money for concerts, buy t-shirts at concerts, etc. I'm doing the same. I give away my books like promotional material. If people like my writing, they buy paperbacks like a souvenir of sorts, that's why I sell more signed books than paperbacks on Amazon. And so far I haven't been invited to come out to some event to talk, but I have a feeling I will, and that is sort of like a music concert, right? So far I've been asked to do numerous interviews, like, right now, I'm 3 written interviews behind, and have one Skype one later tonight. See the trend? 

I plan to support myself for 3 years by any means, before I will really make money. So, this is not some wisdom from someone who has done it before, because I don't know anyone who is doing what I'm doing, except Amanda Palmer in the music space. If you know of anyone, can you please tell me in comments? I would love to connect! But my thinking is based in what Hemingway said, something along the lines of, if you write for 3 years, and nobody is paying you money for your writing by the end of 3 years, quit it and do something else. I started writing full time in May of 2012, I'm not expecting to make any money until May of 2015, at least, not enough money to live on. If by then I'm still not making enough to live on, well, I will sit down and reevaluate my life. By now I'm so addicted to writing, that I don't know if I can do anything else. We shall see. This month I have a consulting gig with a company, helping them with their social media presence. I'm only working 4 Mondays a month, making enough money to live on for 1 month. I have shifted my schedule so that I'm writing on Saturdays and only taking Sundays off. It will be tough, but, hey, I can't complain, I'm making money! I don't know if they will like me enough to invite me to do more work. If they won't, I was thinking about doing a Kickstarter in March, to raise money to write 3 more books. It takes me 4 months to write a book, and all I need is $24K to survive for 1 year. In any case, I will keep you posted.

Well, there are my numbers for you. If you have any more detailed questions, please ask, I will try to answer in as much detail as I can. For now, I gotta get back to finishing Rosehead, so I can start writing Irkadura, because I have only 6 months left to finish and publish both! Oy!