As a former athlete (2x national champion as a hwt. wrestler and undefeated internationally in Greco-Roman) I am constantly watching numbers. Athletes love numbers. How quick did I get my first points, what was my average time of pin-fall, how many points did I get on average. That continued over to my writing career; how many sales, how many review, average review score.

A big part of my concern is income. How much money am I bringing in? I think that has to do a lot with me living in a homeless shelter for a year and sleeping with bedbugs and sharing a shower with 120 other people (not all at the same time).

But I am learning that there are other successes that probably count more and I would like to share them.

Monetarily, The Transsexual and the Cross (TSATC) has been a flop. It might sell a handful of copies a month, usually one or two, and I envisioned it being ranked with Ravi Zacharias and Billy Graham. But it has opened doors, as has a lot of my other works. Because of TSATC I have had TV and radio interviews, I met a psychologist in Ohio who used it in their dissertation, I met the illustrator of my children's book. A pastor from NJ did a major critique and I learned a whole bunch about what I wrote on. Another student contacted me and they are also using my book in a dissertation. I also met Kristin Beck, who is amazingly a lot like me. So maybe I haven't sold a million copies, but I have been in contact with a lot of great people. I think if I change one life, it is worth it's weight in gold ($5,400.58 at current market values, I told you I was a numbers whore). But I have to remember that success isn't always in dollars and cents, sometimes it's in smiles and well wishes.