Just sold three copies of Gradient.
If any of you reading this are among those three; thank you.
I've never really cared whether writing actually pays. I've got two paid gigs to my name so far: this, and a short story in Stupefying Stories, Losing Things. I won't turn down the royalties, don't get me wrong — but that's not the point.
What matters to me is being read. If something in there made you think or feel something you wouldn't have otherwise, then the time it took wasn't just for me, and that's the payoff.