I've been on vacation the last week, and spent most of the last two days recovering from my bout of relaxation. You know you did a vacation right when you need a vacation to recover from it. So, for those of you who contributed to the Books for Breasts campaign last week, I haven't put books in the mail yet, but I swear they'll get in the mail before the end of the week.
I've had a couple of people ask me about upcoming signings. I don't have any bookstore signings lined up at present, but I will be a guest at Dragoncon in Atlanta over the Labor Day Weekend, then a guest at Capclave near Washington DC in October. I skipped Dragoncon last year, and have never been to Capclave, so I'm looking forward to reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a while and making new friends.
Finally, two Dragon Age book reviews popped up while I was gone. First, Loren Eaton has reviewed Bitterwood at I Saw Lightning Fall. He admires the book for breaking conventions, but dislikes Hezekiah's voice-of-God mode where he quotes the Bible in ALL CAPS. It's a fair criticism; I think it was a fun idea when I had it, but perhaps it was a little too cutesy in retrospect.
Dragonseed got some ink (or photons, I guess) over at Aliette de Bodard's blog. She writes: But what I loved about the previous books, and that I still love about this one, is Maxey’s willingness to handle hard questions about species survival, humanity’s worthiness and the value of faith and religion. Those were themes already explored in Bitterwood and Dragonforge, and I’m glad to see that they’re back, and that Maxey handles them gracefully, without sinking into too much preachiness. Every character has a different view on the matter–and, in the end, it’s only the fanatics such as Prophet Ragnar who might be proved wrong.
More updates soon!
5 comments:
THINE LITERARY MISDEEDS SHALL NOT BE MARKED AGAINST THEE, JAMES!
It's probably still too early to say much, but can you tell us if sales of Dragonseed are good? I loved it, thought it was the strongest of the entire series actually.
Just hoping for more books in the universe!
Thanks, Jim! I'm hoping I get a shot at writing more books set in this world as well, and my best hope for that is if the sales of Dragonseed match the sales of the first two books despite the complete lack of marketing from Solaris. The book isn't even listed in the release catalog on their website!
That said, the distribution of the book seems pretty wide-spread. My girlfriend Cheryl has been sending me cellphone photos from various bookstores she's gone to on her vacation and she's even found it at Books-a-Million, a chain that didn't carry Bitterwood initially.
At this point, it's mainly a matter of trust that getting the book into stores combined with a strong cover will generate sales. I won't find out any hard sales numbers until next May, unfortunately. Until then, I can only read tea leaves. I'm nervous, for example, that the book has only had one amazon review as the one month mark of release approaches. On the other hand, I need to take deep breaths and remember that it has just been a month, and that Amazon reviews don't neccessarily tell you much about sales. Nobody Gets the Girl, my debut novel, has more amazon reviews than Bitterwood, and my google alerts continue to bring me new mentions of the book on blogs every couple of weeks, but it sold maybe 1/10th what Bitterwood did. Chatter doesn't equal sales, it seems.
James, you have earned a place of honor on my shelf along with Anne McCaffery and Naomi Novik. Great reading and highly recommended. Thanks...
Thanks, Jay!
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