Seventy-five days and counting down.

[seanan_mcguire]

We are now seventy-five days out from the release of Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies]. We're thirty-five days out from the San Diego International Comic Convention, aka "Geek Prom," aka "Seanan makes her first appearance in a public place as a professional author, rather than as a musician who occasionally writes things and says flaily stuff about a book that's coming out sometime in the far, misty future." If I had a penny for every day between now and my book hitting shelves, I couldn't even buy a cup of coffee.

Who has a ticket on the crazy train? Is it me? Why, yes, I do believe that it is. (Although my crazy is somewhat alleviated by the fact that a new Mersenne prime has been discovered. It's thirteen million digits long. I would post it here, but the text file is seventeen MB, which means it's roughly 3,500 pages of single-spaced twelve-point text. I'm not that crazy. Yet.)

We had a brief question-and-answer session at the end of my reading at DucKon, and people asked how they could make their book purchases count the most. I love these people. I love them like burning. That said...

* If you have a brick-and-mortar store, buy there. Buying a physical book from a physical store forces the store to restock, which gets more copies into circulation. Book sales are calculated using a bizarre algorithm of "copies shipped" and "copies returned." We want the first number to be enormous, and the second number to be nonexistent.

* Online orders definitely count as sales, and if you don't have a brick-and-mortar store, that's an awesome route. (Also, if you've already pre-ordered, canceling your order is probably not very nice.) Even if you don't place your order online, remember that a lot of people do, and that reviews and rankings help to inform decisions.

...which brings me to a note on reviews: please review the book honestly, and don't worry that I'll be coming for you in the night with a bucket full of bloodworms. I won't be reading Amazon reviews, remember? But please do review the book. Reviews will help get people who have no idea who I am to take a chance on me, which increases my numbers, which increases the odds of the trilogy doing well enough that we can sell the next three. Which increases the odds of my being entertainingly crazy forever.

Seventy-five days.

Great Pumpkin preserve us.

Comments

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Will buy at a "real store". Actually, suspect I will begin lurking in stores sometime in mid-august in order to seize your book and do a little dance in the aisles. (and then surreptitiously move the rest of the copies to a more advantageous position on the shelf).

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

heh, that's a good idea. :)

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Guerilla marketing FTW.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Hmm. What's "more advantageous" like?

I'd settle for turning the book so the front faces out, but are there any other recommendations? I'd prefer ones that nobody's going to fix.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I turn them so the cover shows - that way they can be found if you're looking alphabetically but will also catch the eye of the casual browser. I'm not hiding anyone else's stuff - that'd be mean.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'm planning to buy at a "real store," just so I can say I did.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

"Hey wow - this book that I just happened to come across on the shelf looks like a good read!"

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Here's to living in exciting times :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It's definitely exciting, that's for sure.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

Pretty soon it'll be close enough that I can preorder at my local store.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And I will weep.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I would post it here, but the text file is seventeen MB

yeah, but I'd bet a pumpkin spice donut that gfish would like a copy. :)

Preordered from the local brick-and-mortar. Also have most of a jar of earplugs on my desk, so if I start hearing "OMG" floating in from a vaguely southish direction anytime in the next 76, 77 days or so I'll be ready. :) :)

Great Pumpkin preserve us..

Pumpkin preserves. Om nom nom. Good on a cinnamon-raisin English muffin. :q

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

I suspect that if you bottle and preserve a deity, you get really nasty indigestion and not a little irritation from its followers. Just FYI.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

How about pickling?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Didn't say I was gonna can the Great Pumpkin. Just *a* pumpkin. Suitably blessed, of course, and to be eaten in honor of the Pumpkin That's Bigger Than The Both Of Us.

But the cookies you leave outside, for Coyote.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

It depends on who does it and why, of course. If it's done by a priest of the deity under orders, that's different from me stuffing Cthulhu in a canning jar.

[jacylrin.livejournal.com]

I now have a visual....

Sometimes, having a vivid imagination is waaaaay more fun ;-)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Please don't eat my deity.

[jacylrin.livejournal.com]

Hm. Will have to see if I can find a small book shop that does new books. My burb doesn't have one. Otherwise, I'll preorder at Bordures or Barnes Enable, since they're the new book purveyors here *sigh*.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Honestly, Borders and Barnes & Noble employ a lot of people who really need the work, and account for an enormous percentage of the average genre author's sales. Be nice to them. They need love too.

[kyrielle]

I have preordered copies at Powell's in Beaverton, using it as an opportunity to also encourage them to stock it. Fingers crossed!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!