Release Day This is it. Today is the day. Seven years after I sat down and wrote the first words of what would become Investigation, Mediation, Vindication, I am now finally sharing the entire book with the world. Finally, you all get to join John Smith on his journey. Punk-rock vampires, sports-obsessed goblins, insane demigods,…
Before tomorrow’s release of Investigation, Mediation, Vindication, I thought it would be fun to once again share some of the (mainly ridiculous) stats behind the book. How many times does the main character faint? What 2013 San Diego references are no longer viable in 2020? All this and more!
With the launch of Investigation, Mediation, Vindication just three weeks away (!!), May is going to be busy. Earlier this month, I revealed the cover design for the book. Coming up, you can expect sample chapters, advance reviews, story stats, and more. But before we get into any of that, it seemed like a good idea to explain the book is really about. And who better to give us an introduction to Investigation, Mediation, Vindication than the main character himself, Mr. John Smith?
So without further ado… my interview with the protagonist.
In my mind, every book cover has three stories.
There’s the story the image tells. There’s the story that it covers… i.e. the book itself. And last, but not least, there’s the story of its creation.
Today, I’m thrilled to to reveal the cover for my urban fantasy novel, Investigation, Mediation, Vindication. You’ll be able to judge for yourself what story it tells, if any. As for the story it covers… I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until May to read the book. But in the meantime, I want to tell the third story; the story of the cover’s creation.
So… a thing happened last week, and contrary to my fears, the world didn’t stop spinning. Nor did the barbarian hordes sweep down from the north to sack Rome for an eighth time. In Las Vegas, we did have a week of unseasonably warm weather for November, but something tells me that had nothing to…
After more than three years, dozens of query letters, countless cover-to-cover revisions and editing sessions, several months of cover shenanigans, a live-action trailer, and eight-plus posts of countdown hype, the release day of See These Bones is finally here! Today, readers from around the world will finally get to experience the post-Break world through the eyes and mind of my possibly doomed and very-much-broken protagonist, Damian Banach.
I’m equal parts happy, excited, and… worried.
With the release of See These Bones less than two weeks away, I thought it would be fun to take a break from all the process-heavy and behind-the-scenes posts to share some quick, mainly ridiculous, stats about the book. All numbers provided here represent my best guesses after a less-than-careful review of the manuscript, and I reserve the right to be proven utterly incorrect by future readers. I’ve also tried to keep things spoiler-free.
“The trailer’s the thing, by which we’ll prick the interest of the potential readers!”
-Hamlet, sort of
In last week’s cover reveal, I talked about a cover’s importantance in attracting potential readers. That’s not a bold or divisive statement, by any means. Unfortunately, a good cover on its own is rarely enough. Thanks to modern technology and digital storefronts like Amazon, there are a lot of books being published every week. Many of them even have cool covers, because… again… everyone knows how important that is.
So how do you make your book stand out even more? Well, that’s where marketing comes in… and where I start to flounder. Author interviews, book reviews, give-away contests, calls-to-action for your 50k+ Twitter followers… it’s all designed to get the word out about your book and to convert some of those people into new readers.
A picture is worth a thousand words. A cover is worth way more than that.
The irony of being a first-time author is that some of the most important keys to a successful launch have nothing to do with your writing at all. It’s not enough to write a good book… you have to convince people to actually read that book too.
Worse, you have to convince them to pay for it.
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