Royalty Check Shocker

It started out a typical Monday for me. I got up late and hurried through the morning ritual before work. Finally, at eight, I was leaving my drive. Then, I stopped at the end of the drive because I remember I had not checked my home mailbox in several days. (I have a post office box where I get 90% of my mail) So, I stop the car, rush out in the cold and grab the stuff out of the box. I did have a Christmas card, sales fliers and, oddly enough, a 9 X 12 white envelope from Harlequin with a Swiss return address.

I threw the mail on the passenger's seat. Then, I decided I'd go ahead and open the Harlequin envelope, figuring it was a sales pitch for their books but then again it didn't seem bulky enough for that. I took a quick look at the contents as I was pulling out of the drive and I was like Holy Shit!! It was a royalty check for French sales!

So I'm driving to work, thinking what the hell??? Did I have something published I didn't know about? A few years ago, I had won a Harlequin novella contest. Had they published it in France? Whoa! This was totally weird.

Finally, I got to work and sat down to look at the contents of the envelope which included the royalty statement. Sadly to say, this check, which I believe is pounds instead of dollars, didn't belong to me but to a writer with the same name. And, this was royalties on a medical romance published in England in 1992! It had been reprinted in France in 2007 where it actually sold better than in the other countries.

I did email Harlequin using the Contact Us email off their website about this.

And from this experience, I did learn those stories about Harlequin keeping databases on writers/submissions must be true and they must keep them forever. Can you imagine the size of that server??? It has been years since I submitted anything to England. Maybe there is only one database for all the branches of this company. However, that doesn't explain how they managed to mix me up with this other writer, who is probably from England. Plus it must be a database that is available world-wide to their different offices. This check came from Switzerland where they probably do their banking.

Also I learned if you're waiting on book royalties to eat, you might just starve.