So it’s been a pretty exhausting week, guys. I don’t know whether it’s my workload at the day job, the usual mild case of seasonal affective disorder I get during the Melbourne winter, or the effort of publishing and promoting a new novella that’s done it, but I’m plumb tuckered out.
…yeah. Let’s be honest, it’s mostly that last one.
The Obituarist has been out in the wild for five days, and I’m pretty damn happy with how things are going. I’ve sold 30 copies so far through Amazon and Smashwords, which is a pretty good launch. More importantly, the feedback I’m getting from readers is uniformly positive – people are reading it and they are liking it a hell of a lot. Two thumbs up.
For my part, the last few days have been all about the book pimping. I’ve sent out emails and free copies, contacted readers and writers, updated the cover art (now much more effective in greyscale) and tweeted like my life depended on it. Which, hmm, could be an interesting plot point for a future sequel to the novella.
That’s been the other recurring theme in the feedback – readers want to see more of Kendall Barber and his adventures. Well, I’ve got the ideas, I just need to justify the work – if I sell enough copies, a sequel could be on the cards. Ah, who am I kidding – I’ve already plotted out half the book! It has [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and Kendall is hired to [CENSORED] but has his [CENSORED] [CENSORED] in the process. It’s a pretty hardcore scene, that one!
Anyway, book promotion. I’ve been pretty lackadaisical with this in the past, and the sales of Hotel Flamingo and Godheads are testimony to that. I had a bit of a psychological hangup with those books, because they were largely written years before they were published – in my head they were old news, and promoting them seemed too much like reading the same edition of the newspaper over and over again, trapped in some kind of bookpimp Groundhog Day.
But not this time – this is all new and I am charged up! To the point where I know it’s going to be tiring and eventually irritating to my regular readers to see me constantly flogging the bloody book. So I’m not going to make any more posts like this one – when I talk about The Obituarist here again it’ll be to discuss ideas, process, new developments and stuff that’s actually interesting, rather than just snake oil.
That said, if I can squeeze in a little more snake oil (tastes great, less filling!), I just need to reiterate that I need your help if the book is going to succeed. Recommend it to your friends, family and colleagues (if you think they’d like it) and on any online forums you frequent. Leave reviews at Amazon, Smashwords or Goodreads, or better yet all three. Tell me about places that I can send review copies, or other crime writers that might like to check it out. And above all else, talk about it on social media, The Obituarist’s natural habitat.
Pimp me. Pimp my book.
Okay, you know what? I’m retiring the word ‘pimp’ now as well.
So. Let’s move on.
Next week – something different! I don’t know what! Blogging without a net or pants!