I swear I was not lurking at the Barnes & Noble. I was there to take a photo of my novel in the wild. It's perhaps endlessly thrilling to see the thing you've worked on out there sitting on a library shelf, a bookshelf, someone's hands... But truly, I was NOT lurking. A pair of young women drifted past the table of stacked books, and one, Rachel, picked up my book. "Squeee! You just picked up my book!" I said. "Wha?" she said, not yet fully alarmed by my obvious excitement. "Look on the back!" She flipped the book over and compared the author photo with my face. "It's you," she said. "I know!" I said, then, because emotions: "I've got goosebumps!" "I picked it up because of the cover." "It's beautiful," I agreed, without the slightest self-consciousness. "And it's about sisters!" Were they sisters, I asked, indicating Rachel and her book-browsing friend. "No. But we both have sisters." Rachel gave me a shrewd look and added, "Is this inspired by a real sister?" "Yes," I said, truthfully. "But my charismatic older sister is much nicer than that one." "Oooh," Rachel said. "I'm a charismatic older sister." And that, gentle reader, is how I accidentally strong-armed an unsuspecting passer-by into purchasing a copy, as well as how I ended up signing a short stack of books at the Barnes & Noble bookstore this afternoon. Thank you https://www.facebook.com/bntampafl Barnes & Noble South Tampa. And thank you, Rachel! In other authorial news, I was invited to map the settings for She Taught Me Everything into a nifty little app called Squirl. Squirl is designed to help users, as its tagline announces "Discover the places described in books." You can visualize where a book is set. So, is Brooklyn Heights your hometown? What snippet from the book did this author choose to go with the pin on the map for Brooklyn Heights?
You can check the map for books set in any given place—a special treat for bookish folk: to see the locations we've read about. Or, if you're built this way, it's a way to pre-view spots before visiting by finding books to read that are set in a specific spot. I love this idea, and hope other authors and their publicity departments will pile on! Thanks https://squirl.co/
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Jill suggested they read She Taught Me Everything for the group, and even though Jill had moved away, they read the book. I Zoomed with the group in May and had a really wonderful conversation about the North Country, these characters, and books in general.
Fast forward a few weeks and while browsing at the St. Lawrence University bookstore, Ana ran into Betsy Kepes of North Country Public Radio and recommended the book. Betsy then reviewed my book for her radio broadcast! And liked it! Yay! Click on the picture and it will link you through to the podcast/broadcast... "Mathy Math, Math-Math." That's how one of my friends hears any discussion of numbers: "Mathy-mathetty-math-math." But even the most innumerate of us have landmark numbers. These are the numbers that maybe we learned to count by (5-10-15-20, for instance) or numbers that just feel less challenging to keep in mind (100 vs 97, or a dozen vs 13). I'm approaching a landmark number as an author—a fact that is truly of interest to nobody but me. Has that yet stopped me from writing about anything? No. During my feverish rush last year to get current in my understanding of modern publishing, I gathered some depressing facts. About half of the US population does't read even a single book a year. Not a surprise, but oh! poor creatures! Also, most books will sell less than 300 copies in the US (1000 copies factoring in all formats across the world). Not just in the first year, btw, but ever. So if, let's say, you just so happened to be pouring your life-force into the creation of a book, this base truth is helpful for framing one's expectations. Joyfully for me, I have at least 300 friends kind enough to buy my book. I am grateful for each one. It's a deep thrill every time someone tells me they have read it. Which brings us to the wonderful-to-me landmark number: 1000. On Goodreads.com, a website helps 150 million readers track and rate books, She Taught Me Everything is inching closer and closer to the 1000 mark. Meaning that nearly 1000 readers on that site—mostly strangers! people who love to read and who judge by covers!—have either already read or plan to read the book. They might be getting it from the library (ooh! If you use the library, consider requesting STME), or from a bookstore, iTunes or Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Amazon... But 1000. Whatever expectations I had six months ago, this number feels a lot bigger than 999. A few sources on the numbers... bulletin.kenyon.edu/article/burning-question-math-illiteracy/ https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing#:~:text=Average%20book%20sales%20are%20shockingly%20small%E2%80%94and%20falling%20fast.&text=Even%20if%20e%2Dbook%20sales,all%20formats%20and%20all%20markets. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/6153-a-bookselling-tail.html https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-only-a-dozen https://jerichowriters.com/average-book-sales-figures/ |
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