Thanksgiving 2020

 

After a weird month (elections! court cases! drama!) in a very weird year (you can leave any day now, 2020!), it’s something of a relief to welcome Thanksgiving here in the USA. My angel-wife and I will be celebrating by ourselves, eating nothing but pie (pizza and pumpkin, at a minimum), as always. It’s a moment of normalcy that I have been looking forward to all month.

More importantly, it’s an opportunity to reflect on all the very many things I am grateful for: family, friends, the city that I live in, and of course, my readers. However you might be spending Thanksgiving (assuming you celebrate it at all), I hope you’ll have good food to eat, good (and safe) company to share it with, and laughter and joy to keep the day bright.

And if that’s not the case for you this Thanksgiving, I truly hope it will be so in the days to come.

Red Right Hand Launch Recap

I promised on my Facebook author page¹ that I’d share some fuzzy numbers on Red Right Hand’s launch this month, and with November primed to slip away in a pie-induced coma, this post may be my only opportunity to do so. Which is fitting, because I have a lot to be grateful for on that front too.

I had an inkling that Red Right Hand’s launch might be successful when it had five times as many pre-orders as See These Bones, and ten times as many as Investigation, Mediation, Vindication, but the launch actually exceeded even those adjusted expectations. More importantly, reader response has been incredible so far. I’ve had several people reach out to me directly to tell me how much they enjoyed it, and as an author, there is no better feeling than that.

Those people have also almost universally wanted to know when the next book, One Tin Soldier, will be available and why I write so slowly, to which my answers are inevitably next fall, and I just don’t know. As the last book in the trilogy, I really, really, really need to get it right. I promise this won’t be a George R.R. Martin scenario²!

Really, it’s fabulous and energizing to see all of the enthusiasm, and I appreciate every comment I’ve gotten. My greatest fear with Red Right Hand was letting down everyone who loved See These Bones. The vast majority of you have told me that did not happen, and that feels incredible.

See These Bones Sale Recap

To celebrate the release of Red Right Hand, I ran a week-long sales promotion for See These Bones. Then, on the actual release date, I used Book Barbarian³ to spread the word about the discount. That was shockingly successful, resulting in roughly 10x my usual daily sales⁴. Many of those new readers then moved on to Red Right Hand and the novelettes. In fact, November was my best month of sales ever, proving that adage about a rising tide lifting all boats.

 

The Black Sheep of my Bibliography

Well… almost all boats. Investigation, Mediation, Vindication hasn’t seen much of a lift this month, which is understandable, given that it’s an entirely different series and setting. Even so, people continue to slowly discover it on their own and enjoy it. My next full-length book release will be the second in that series, Blood Is Thicker Than Lots of Stuff⁵ and I’m hopeful that the combination of a new, more genre-appropriate cover and a sequel will earn the series a larger fanbase. It’s definitely on the weird side of urban fantasy, but the people who love it seem to really, really love it⁶.

 

Ratings and Reviews

With the launch officially two weeks behind us, Red Right Hand has already received twenty-three global ratings/reviews on Amazon, with twenty-one of them five-stars. On Goodreads, it  has twenty-one ratings/reviews, with sixteen of them five-stars. See These Bones has also seen a small uptick in ratings and reviews on Amazon⁷, and a much larger one on Goodreads⁸, and even the novelettes and IMV have managed a few new ratings or reviews. That’s a hell of a month! When I started writing, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have any readers at all, so hundreds of people reading my books is nuts. And the vast majority of those readers liking them? Well, that’s just crazy-pants.

As I’ve said before, my sales largely depend on word-of-mouth, so the more reviews I get, the better. I read every single review (even the bad ones!) because I am neurotic to the core, and if you enjoyed one of my books, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Preferably on Amazon, where casual browsers will find your brilliantly crafted paean and decide to take a chance on a new author themselves! (If you have comments that you don’t want to make public, drop me an email via this site’s contact form. I won’t give out spoilers without excessive amounts of bribery, but I will definitely reply!)

Review or no review, rating or no rating, sale or no sale, I am grateful for all of you. Thank you for making this a great month and a great year (worldwide disasters notwithstanding)! Happy Holidays!

 

Next month, I’ll be back with my usual ‘goodbye letter to <insert year here>’. It should be a doozy. I’ll also revisit my resolutions, recap the top 5 most-read posts of the year, and indulge in the usual holiday-related shenanigans.

 

 

1. Did I mention I now have a Facebook author page? It only took me a year!
2. Unless someone throws GoT money at me to make a Murder of Crows tv show, in which case, all bets are off.
3. A sci-fi/fantasy specific promotional service
4. In fact, because Amazon fulfilled the Red Right Hand preorders the night before the official launch date, See These Bones actually outsold Red Right Hand on the latter book’s launch day.
5. If I can, I’ll also release the third book, Ghost of a Chance, in the summer… but no promises!
6. If you’re one of them, you definitely want to join my newsletter! I’ll soon be sharing a free short story starring Bill, IMV’s demigod of nightmares, terror, and vindication. It’s great silly fun.
7. 55 global ratings/reviews.
8. 63 ratings/reviews.