Hello once again! It has been a while since last I spoke to you good folks, and the meantime has not been wholly uneventful, so I figured I would give you an update on what’s been going on in my literary life.
First and foremost, not long ago Pure Textuality put out a call for authors willing to write a guest post on the blog. Considering all of the help and coverage I’ve gotten from them, I figured it was the least I could do to offer to lend a hand. My post, called Icing on the Cake: The Value of Good Artwork, went up a few days ago. Check it out, if you’re interested.
Speaking of artwork, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see fresh artwork for my science fiction books. The great thing about getting art done by a truly talented artist is that you get really excellent work. The less great thing is that truly talented artists are in extremely high demand, so sometimes patience is in order. As I’ve said, though, I haven’t even finished WRITING the second science fiction book, so I wouldn’t have any use for the covers for a month or two at least.
On the subject of the science fiction book, I’m pulling up on 130,000 words, and the end can’t be more than a few chapters away, so it looks like this thing is going to be roughly the length of one of the Book of Deacon entries, rather than the marginally shorter first installment. I’m just about to start working on the climax. The bad news, though, is that after a few weeks of relatively low workload in my real life, things are about to get intense for a few weeks. Aside from the holidays, which are sure to take an enjoyable but sizable chunk of my time, I am also going to be the only man on-site for my department in my day job. That’s going to mean very long workdays and very little free time, so not much writing. I’ll try to get the last of the book at least written by the end of the year, but editing and revising will probably stretch into 2012. I’m beginning to see why being an author is supposed to be a full time job.
Finally, there is the reason for the title of this post. A few months ago, something that I’ve referred to as “The Amazon Sales Anomaly” started. This was what I assumed would be a short-lived spike in downloads and sales on Amazon.com. It has not turned out to be short-lived, which is an unexpected but very welcome surprise, since it has allowed me to afford all of this lovely new art, editing, and other extravagances. Well, about a week ago my free book had one really good day, then this past Thursday it had another, except this time it didn’t stop. At just seventeen days into the month I’ve already earned nearly double the number of free downloads as I’ve been averaging over the last three months. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this happened. The best theory I’ve heard has to do with the fact that Amazon has been selling roughly one million new kindles a WEEK. That would certainly lead to a spike in free book downloads. The result, though, is that I’m back in the top 100 free eBooks on Amazon, at least for now, and have even made the top 10 free fantasy eBooks. If you are visiting this site after picking up and reading my book this month, first of all, thanks for reading! Second, I hope you enjoyed it, and third, I’d love to hear what led you to my book, so we can shed some light on this happy little mystery. You can drop me a line via email on my contact page, via the comments section below, or in my spiffy forum. (By the way, someone joined with the username Needlehawk, which is an obscure creature from book 2. The fact that someone would pick a name from my book, let alone such a minor one, is ridiculously rewarding to me for reasons I can’t fully explain.)
Until next time, thanks for reading, and if I don’t post again before then, happy holidays!