Wow. Okay, in my defense, I’ve Tweeted some, and I’ve Facebooked some, but clearly I have NOT kept up to date on blogging!
Missed two whole book releases. Shameful!
Hometown Hero came out a couple months ago, and I liked the reviews it got–I felt like they were fair, and pretty much understood what I’d been trying to do. I would have liked it if they’d produced more sales, but Hero is outselling the first book in the series, so… that’s moving in the right direction, right?
The contract with Berkley was for two books only (I assume they would be interested in more if sales justified it, but I’m not sure sales really did. I mean, the books are still on the shelves, they’re still selling, but the initial burst is over). There’s a third book I really want to write (the story of Zara’s brother and his adjustment to the outside world after being in prison for so long… and, of course, the woman who helps him enjoy his freedom!) but it’s kind of a weird situation. Normally I’d say I should write it and if the publisher doesn’t want it I can just self-publish it, but almost all of the sales for this series have been print (I assume because the e-books were pretty expensive) so I wouldn’t have access to the same market if I self-published. A self-published print book isn’t going to get bookshelf space across the continent. So… I don’t know. The series is on hold, I’d say.
And, of course, we had the second book in the Corrigan Falls Raiders series, Playing Defense. It’s been really fun to hear about people reading it, and again the reviews have been almost all favourable. Readers love Chris Winslow as much as I do, and they seem to like Claudia just fine as well. So… yay!
And sales have been steady. Never overwhelming or anything, but people seem to be picking it up. An example of the importance of price, I’d say–at $2.99, why not give a new-to-you author a try? Of course, by the time Amazon and the publisher get their cuts, there’s not a whole lot left for me, but… building an audience, I tell myself. And, of course “don’t quit the day job.” I tell myself that pretty often! Lucky that I more-or-less, most-of-the-time enjoy my job. If only it didn’t have to start quite so early in the morning, and then go quite so late in the evening. Oh well!
And there’s a date set for the release of the third Corrigan Falls book – May 9th. I’m a bit wary about promoting that date too hard because Playing Defense got bumped off schedule several times, so I don’t think I’ll be posting too much until I actually see the book go up on Amazon or somewhere with that release date. But, at least tentatively… about a month to go! Yay!
