wednes | I'm becoming increasingly frusatrated...

Another author at my publishing house secured a Borders signing without the BINC number every Borders in Ann Arbor has assured me I need to get a signing. My sales are stupid low, as pretty much everyone I know who intends to buy a book has already bought one. My commercial is doing shit for business despite how much it costs, and there are over a million books on Amazon doing better than mine.

Couple that with the fact that pretty much no one was interested in the FREE zombie story I posted at MySpace, nor the deleted Sadie chapter I posted here. I know I don't post these things for the purpose of collecting comments, but I did expect that some of you would be at least a little excited about the previously unseen chapter.

Maybe that's my problem, I'm not making people get excited about the book.
My new book is coming out in September, and it's nowhere near as good as the Sadie book.
So it's not going to do nearly the sales that Sadie did, which as I mentioned, were alarmingly low.
I swear I'm gonna be stuck selling violins and living in an apartment for the rest of my fucking life.
Fie!

The rest of the world appears to be up in arms over the Obama New Yorker cover. I must admit I was initially offended by it. But it's not as if the New Yorker is calling Obama a muslim extremist, not really. It's actually a great compliment to be on the cover of the New Yorker, I wouldn't sneeze at it, no matter how I was depicted. Of course it's easy for me to say that seeing as how it will never happen. Anyway, I guess the New Yorker is much cleverer than me...which is why once I again, I didn't quite "get it." But I guess it's a satire of how people keep trying to derail Obama's campaign with depictions of him as a Muslim or terrorist sympathizer. I guess there are still people who are offended by Obama's not wearing a flag lapel pin. Asinine! It amazes me how fucking gullible people can be.

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rudepundit had a good column on the Obama/New Yorker thing.

Sorry to hear the bookselling is so frustrating. I hope things pick up. I did like your deleted Sadie chapter.

That is a good article. thanks for linking it.

Yeah, the book stuff is really frustrating and sad. I thought good word of mouth would take me a lot further than it has.

You're welcome. : )

I would have thought word of mouth would have counted for a lot, too. Especially the kind of reviews you have on Amazon. It should be selling like gangbusters with those. Are there any other forums you can join that would be appropriate for bookpimping?

There are a few I've been working. I just bought a book on internet publicity that I hope will help.

I hope so, too. Continued good luck!

give yourself some time for your book to find its market. At the very least you know I have your book as a face out display in our horror room and I won't be sending them back as I'm the one in charge of returns.

Thanks man, I really appreciate that.

It takes time to find a market though....

I have been published for nearly a decade now and I have made just enough to buy, well, a lunch and some rare import CDs.

I am pretty sure you'll do much better than me though. I think writing is just one of those things where it just takes a long time - longer than anyone would like, I am sure.

At this stage, in my case, I am pretty sure I will retire from Detroit Edison, not from writing. LOL

I guess I just thought having a truly good book and some Word of Mouth would be enough.
I am being rather impatient, of course.

We'll see if this new book I'm reading helps with online publicity. I'm not really that interested in the money, but some big sales numbers would be fun.

I'm excited about the deleted chapter, and I have it in a tab at home to read, but I just haven't had a chance yet!

My sister read Sadie too, & really enjoyed it (even though she found it more depressing than I did). It really is good, but isn't the book market like this for most writers, no matter how worthy their work is? I think the above commenter was right that it just takes a lot of time.

Thanks!

Sadie is pretty depressing, depending on one's mindset. I just hoped there was enough humor to balance it out.

I'm feeling more encouraged by this book I picked up. It has some good marketing ideas I can try out. Yeah, I guess it's just taking longer than I thought it would.

Well for one I am very, very excited about the chapter. I just... spend all of my time chasing high school boys around, trying to catch up on news, hanging out with David, or sleeping. My intertube time has been seriously strangled, but I hope to get to it sooooonnnn. Because, as I have told you, your book was fucking awesome.

And therefore, I am also very, very excited about the next one, and when that comes out I will be in classes and attending English Club and suchlike and will whore it out like no tomorrow, you best be sure. ;)

Thanks so much!

The second book will be available for pre-order soon.

Yay!!! Happy dance.

I cannot tell you how many author signings were a bust for us at our bookstore (old school 2400 sq feet, which is about the size of the average Starbucks in a B&N.)

Anyway, Undine & I decided that it simply wasn't worth our time, effort & expense (the cost of tying up some of our capital in buying 25/50 copies of the book that would only wind up selling a few, printing flyers, posters, handouts, press releases, bookmarks, the cost of returning the books to the wholesaler, yadda yadda yadda) unless we could more 'bring the author to the audience' instead of the other way around.

For smaller, locally published works (one was a mystery series), we invited them to our bookgroup. Not so much as to discuss their book (really, what was there to discuss?), but having the author there to speak about the creative process, the writing process, editing, giving them a glimpse into publishing, etc., paid off in spades.

I say this to you because instead of being a passive participant (which is what an unknown author is) at a one-hour book signing where you will sell, oh, three books, suggest to the powers that be about being an ACTIVE participant via their book groups. The bonus is many patrons will purchase a BOOK GROUP title with ZERO INTENTION of ever attending. Those sales helped minimize the warehouse/publisher returns.

It truly makes for a unique evening.

Interesting.

That is certainly something to think about.
Thank You!

I like your stuff. Sorry it is frustrating.

It took me 4 years to stop being in the red when I opened my counseling practice, which was the only one in town besides state mental health, and despite tons of people talking about how much my services were needed... Anyway, by the time it looked like I might make money one year, I quit to be a mom.

Moral of my story is that it takes a long time. And I'm guessing in a flooded and competitive market when people are spending less on unnecessary expenses, it might take longer.

But I want you to keep the faith, because you are good, and you love writing, and that is important.

Thanks, man.
I appreciate that.

Another part of the problem was that I was out of marketing ideas, but now I have some.

I'm becoming increasingly frusatrated...

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