It's On The Loose!

[dr_pretentious]

You know those final scenes in nature documentaries when the animal that's been raised in captivity gets released into the wild, and the music swells, and the voiceover narrator says something like, "The future remains uncertain for keystone predators like little Spiky," and you cheer the creature on--Go, Spiky, Go!--as the credits roll? Well, okay, maybe not everybody cheers the creature on, but I always do.

That's kind of how it feels to look for the first time at my novella for sale at the Drollerie Press Bookshop and Mobipocket.

My book has now been released into its new habitat, one of the habitats for which it evolved. Manuscripts shouldn't have to live in captivity, in proverbial trunks--they should roam wild in bookstores and readers' brains. Fortunately, Closing Arguments is not a keystone predator, or any other sort of beast that you can best help by keeping your distance. Walk right up and pet it. Take it home with you. It won't eat any of your other books, I promise.

jeneralist asked, "Where's the best place for your friends to buy it to help it go big?" It was a kind thing to ask. I think every place where it'll be on offer has some advantage. If you buy it directly from the publisher, that gets the middleman out of the way of my eventual royalties, but Mobipocket, Fictionwise, and Amazon have more reach, and good sales figures through a big bookseller seem to breed more good sales figures. (Closing Arguments will go up on Fictionwise sometime next week, and I'm not sure about Amazon's timing, but that'll be soon, too. They carry all the exotic formats, which apparently means they always have a lag.)

What would help at least as much as buying it would be rating or reviewing it. The three big online booksellers have their various ways for customers to give public feedback. If you enjoy Closing Arguments, please consider saying so on one of their webforms.

Lots of friends have said they've never bought an e-book before, and that the whole process seems very intimidating. If you want a user-friendly way to buy Closing Arguments, and you don't want to have to read it on a screen, your best bet is to go directly to Drollerie Press and buy it in Adobe PDF, which you can then print. It's 116 pages long, fairly easy on your printer. If you run into difficulty as a newcomer to the world of e-books, you can ask for help here or email me at first name dot last name at gmail dot com. If I don't know the answer, I'll find someone who does.

Thank you all so much for cheering me on in this process. Many of you have been doing your equivalent of Go, Spiky, Go! for years now. It's meant the world to me to have such great support.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I shall go and pet Spiky, and encourage others to do so. I know from experience that when Spiky and its siblings were evolving, they were incredibly friendly, and I always wanted to take them home with me. I'm against the pedigree breeding of animals, but books, I feel, are a different matter entirely.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'm really curious about how the story will play to British readers. It's so rooted in New Jersey, I have no idea which things will and won't come across. Tell me all!

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I shall do!

I may well begin with my "boss" at Citizens Advice tomorrow. He is a Big Geek, and may be a good first sounding board.