Newsletter #84 — Publication Day
June 15, 2024
Newsletter #84 — Publication Day
First Day — On Publication Day (June 4), Exit Velocity ranked #1 in working class main character searches and #21 in women fight back fiction searches. Since then, it has moved up to #14 in the latter category. Now my marketing job is to try to figure out how to move even higher in the second category, and maybe concentrate on a third category as well.
GoodReads Review — This 5-star review appeared on GoodReads two days before publication. I love the review! It's so full of energy! It now appears on Amazon, also.
Out of Stock — I wish my book to be a success: i.e., well liked, with many sales. But as the saying goes: be careful of what you wish for because it might come true. First day sales of Exit Velocity were so many that Barnes & Noble ran out of copies very early in the day, and Amazon ran out of copies around 11:00 p.m. CST. On the first day of sales, the major online vendors ran out of my book. As did other online vendors such as BookShop.
This does not mean that I sold thousands of copies (too bad). It means that, despite the fact that Exit Velocity has had rising sales since May 12 (see chart), vendors may have waited until June 4 to order more. Which means there may be a two week period in which the only available copies are ebooks.
Sigh.
Online Interviews — When The F Words was published I had wonderful author interviews with Authors Answer and also with Book Q & A's with Deborah Kalb. In early April I wrote to both of them to ask if they would be interested in another interview, this time about Exit Velocity. Deborah Kalb said yes, but Authors Answers has a policy of interviewing an author only once, so I no longer qualified. Here, however, is a link to the Deborah Kalb interview.
Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel — The third and final of the reviews that I discovered when I finally got around to looking at my other books again was a review of Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel, which is my best-selling book on Amazon. (To be eclipsed by Exit Velocity, I hope.) Here it is.
Trying to write mystery, I've picked up many books. One book was even a collection of advice from prestigious mystery writers, and was published by Mystery Writers of America. It seems like every other guide to writing a mystery wants to talk about everything except the subject matter. Barbara Gregorich's guide gets straight to the point. It is extremely dense with actionable advice while also being very breezy to read. But maybe most importantly it provides foundational ways of thinking that help the reader-hopeful-writer learn to problem solve themselves.
It is not just a breath of fresh air where every other mystery writer just wants to ramble endlessly about the importance of "character" and self-congratulate themselves on how perceptive of the human heart they are. It is an indispensable guide. The real crime is that this is not the most popular book on mysteries by far.
Another Interview — Not one to waste words, I have published the Authors Answer interview on my web site.