Writing by the Numbers: 2007 stats

New Year's is one of my favorite times of year--it gives me a good excuse to look at how I was doing, submission-wise (and otherwise) for my writing, and to set new goals for new year.

Here is how 2007 worked out, by the numbers:

Writing:
I did a major rewrite of my new novel.
I wrote a book proposal (with a friend).
I wrote two new short plays.
I created this blog in March and have posted 172 times. (That should count at writing, yes?)


Submissions:
Play script submissions: 81. 14 were accepted so far (17%), 19 rejected. (Lots more still out there.)
Play queries: 69. 10 led to requests for scripts (14%)

queries to film producers: 44. 0 responses so far. (I was using the ScriptPIMP site, and it really crapped out on me this time.)

queries for book proposals: 2. Both were requested.

book proposal submissions: 3. 1 rejected so far.

queries for articles: 1. And it was rejected.



Productions/Audience for 2007:

I had 10 productions and readings (of 8 different plays, in New York, Chicago, and Boston), but those 10 productions only yielded 21 performances (i.e. one-night stands and festivals). Seven were of short plays or one-acts, one was a radio broadcast of a radio play, and the other two were of a full-length and a collection of short plays. (My goal was 52 performances, so I came up quite a bit short of goal this year.)

Approximately 750 people attended these performances (so audiences were small).

My published scripts sold about 1,000 copies, and yielded a handful of other productions. So if you add those in, my total attendance for the year was easily over 2,000. (My goal was 4,800. Yikes.)

I won one award (Pumpkin Patch won SlamBoston in November) and took a couple semi-finalist and finalist slots.

Lots of good news on the publishing front. Blinders was published by Original Works, Pumpkin Patch just got picked up by Playscripts, my collection Tightly Bound was published by Brooklyn, and four short plays (Measuring Matthew, Pumpkin Patch, Stop Rain, and Den of Iniquity) are all going to appear in Smith & Kraus "Best of" anthologies.


Money.

My goal this year was to bring in at least $4,800 from my writing-related activities (and now I'm including freelance editing and web gigs in this total). For once, I actually met and passed my goal. The productions mentioned above brought in a whopping $847, but the published plays brought in more than $1,000, and freelance editing, web work, and a one-time teaching stint, filled in the rest. (I sold a couple copies of Tornado Siren, my novel, but it didn't add much to the bottom line.) Next year, I'm going to need to make more money, but I'm on track for that to happen now, which is a relief.


That's about it. Not a bad year, though there's certainly room for improvement. The good news is that I just picked up a production of a radio play, Tundra Games, by Ciona Taylor productions. It should be a podcast in February. And I've got a short play production lined up in Boston for February, so at least something will happen in 2008.