I blinked at her as her words filtered into an unused part of my brain.

How many books have I sold?

She was looking at me in her perfect way - the hair: perfect. The makeup: barely there but just enough. The outfit: A silk blouse and unattainable leather pants. She was a remnant of my past, when I lived in the world with other people; when I was that well-dressed, successful woman who was in charge. I looked down at myself: I was sipping my second glass of wine when everyone else at the table was tactfully working through their first one. My fuzzy sweater kept shedding hairs of maroon wool into my eyes and making me blink myopically. My jeans were the wrong color and shape. I had walked out of the house and into a bar looking like this and barely noticed, because my head was miles high in the clouds, dreaming up plotlines and character profiles.

There was a moment of panic and then realization that it was going to be ok. I remembered myself - not the corporate self, but the self that had been hiding for years.

The question, posed by a very successful woman who works in the financial industry, was asked innocently. She is lovely (I mean lovely inside, but it doesn’t help that she was also stunning on the surface, too), and she meant no malice whatsoever. She was just trying to put me in context next to what she knew: numbers, ratios, comparisons, positives and negatives. This is the world she lived in, and at one time, it was a world I lived in as well.

For weeks, her question didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. I have absolutely nothing against her - like I said, she’s a lovely person. Taking her in context, her question made sense. At the time, I was only a few months past my resignation from one a major Seattle-based tech company, and still used to only measuring success in dollars and ad-clicks. But there was something else that kept chewing on my edges and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

And then I realized, it was me. I had sold out.

No, not now - I sold out early in my career. In my early twenties I was a much better writer, but I had no life experience. I wish I could say that I had the wisdom to see this at the time, but actually, I was facing homelessness and so I took the first well-paying job that was offered to me and kissed my dreams goodbye. Years of success followed by self-sabotage ensued.

When I finally decided to leave my well-paying job that was psychologically satisfying and monitored by a wonderful manager who supported me emotionally, I willingly joined the chorus of people who muttered that I was probably having a midlife crisis. I was more aware than most how ridiculous my decision was - after all, I had grown up feeling financially insecure, so it had always been my prerogative to make sure that my finances were plush and stable. So why did the question about how many books I had sold bother me so much? Why did I not know the answer? Why hadn’t I tracked every single half-cent of Kindle Unlimited page reads and royalties on paperbacks (printing and shipping costs removed, of course).

Back at that bar, I stuttered out an excuse to her and then looked at my Amazon dashboard to see how many books I had actually sold. The verdict: I had sold 81 books.

I’ll admit, there is a jaded side of me that suspected it wasn’t possible to get a traditional publishing deal with a well-known firm unless you were sleeping with someone high up. Then I learned more about how the publishing (and book-pitching) industry actually works and recognized that no amount of sexual favors can produce cold, hard cash like a bestseller. I learned how little money traditionally published authors make, unless they are the unicorns, like Stephen King or Danielle Steel. And then I got to the nugget of my ire. This is why I was so unnerved by the question from this well-meaning woman.

I was not tracking how many copies I had sold because I viewed my writing as an art form. Does a true artist really pay attention to ratings, sales percentages, and downloads? Well… yes. I was so exhausted from my corporate life, that I thought writing would be a kind of respite. I no longer needed to count impressions/beans/likes/quarterly reports like I did in my previous role. I could be free to just create in a cocoon of sticky self-love and affirmation.

Nope!

I am an independent author. Why? Not because I couldn’t get a traditional publishing deal. I didn’t even try. I am independently published because I am impatient. I don’t want to give up extra royalties that go to publishing houses. I don’t want to be “told” what to write. Ok, well, for the right price, perhaps I will, but at this moment, I’m loving the freedom that comes with being independent. I wrote a historical fiction epic about 13th century Palestine when the only historical fiction that Americans feel like reading at the moment are stories of brave women overcoming the odds during WWII or the stories of brave women living large during the roaring twenties. Perhaps I will decide to start writing to market when I get tired of noticing that my monthly royalty check doesn’t even amount to a single day’s salary in my old job, but for now, I am not checking how many books I’ve sold, and the next person who asks is going to get the full lecture about the reason for my choice. Even though I have to manage my own marketing, taxes, travel costs, layout, book covers and on and on, this is still a respite from twenty years of working for a tech billionaire.

That feeling of freedom is worth more to me right now than enough book sales to make it on the New York Times bestseller list.