Baby It’s Cold Outside…and Cookies?

So it’s back to work today. Because it makes so much sense to re-open the university–the largest employer in town–when all the public and county schools are still closed and at least half your work force is going to have to take off work because there’s a shortage of babysitters in this town.  I’m just a little bitter because I wanted to sleep in again.  All the snow is going melty and slushy and we’re in for a hard freeze until Thursday. There shall be lots of hot beverages and soup because, baby, it’s COLD outside.

Still, I used yesterday’s gift of unexpected free time to knock several things out that have been lingering for weeks or months because there’s just not quite enough time to get it done on the weekend. Rewired a lamp.  Hung a new shelf for the laundry supplies.  Took down the Christmas tree and packed all that stuff up.  Cleaned house.  Did a beta read for someone.  Watched Shakespeare In Love because I’ve had a hankering since I started reading Anne Fortier’s Juliet (which is excellent).  And got in my daily wad of words for Red. All in all, a very good day.

Devil’s Eye has solidly overtaken Forsaken By Shadow in sales, on Amazon at least.  I credit this to somehow winding up in the top 100 Bargain Books–was up to number 12 this morning.  Sales reporting on Barnes and Noble continues to be spotty.  I certainly hope that this gets corrected soon.

I think that BN has the potential to be a true competitor to Amazon in the self-pub market, but only if they get their crap together. I mean, really, the entire process has been marked with screw ups.  Pubit launched months after it was planned.  There was that whole issue of listings being initially combined with original Smashwords listings until they were removed.  Incorrect descriptions.  Missing covers.  The fact that the entire Nook system was flat out DOWN over Christmas so that all those new Nook owners had to WAIT to buy their books.  And the continued muck up of sales reporting as they try to make up their mind how they want their reporting system to look and work.  Tip: BN, what you’ve got, it ain’t workin’.  Yer doin’ it wrong!  They would do well to create a dummy account to see how Amazon’s DTP displays and follow their example.

In other news, I just saw that my long time writer pal Sarah Rees Brennan (whom I’m delighted to say I knew when), had her Demon’s Lexicon trilogy optioned for a movie, which is just friggin’ awesome. I also noticed that she has a thing where she gives out little snips of her current work (the third in the trilogy) as reader cookies.  Evidently with a poll to help determine what readers want (i.e. a scene from Nick, Alan, or Mae).  I thought this was a really fun idea.  As we are just about to run out of installments for Forsaken By Shadow for Free Fiction Friday (I believe we have 3 remaining), I wondered if y’all would like something of the kind for Red?

6 thoughts on “Baby It’s Cold Outside…and Cookies?

      1. You’re welcome. That was something I learned from a fan who’s been really cool about letting me know when she sees me on lists and Kindle-related blogs and stuff. I probably never would have noticed it on my own and missed most of my time on it when I was within the “New Release” period (which seemed to be 90 days).

    1. Ok, finished now. Re: PubIt. YES on it being a real market. I continue to be somewhat surprised by this, at comparing my numbers at BN and Amazon (when BN reports them, LOL) and by how many readers must be embracing the Nook. Why? My thoughts are mainly support of EPUB, Adobe DRM, and the Overdrive library; and also the addition of the Nook Color to the lineup. I’ve seen the iPad, and it is super pretty. I don’t know much about the tech, but the price of the Nook seems attractive, and of course for many, staying out of iTunes type Hell is priceless.

      It seems to me that while they came late to the party, Barnes and Noble is really trying to move into the future. And for a bunch of corporate suits, they seems to be doing some pretty smart stuff. Unlike, say Borders, who continues to be way behind in innovation and in their numbers, I guess. (Which is sad. I like to shop Borders. I don’t like that they don’t want to sell my book, though.)

      It’s unfortunate that they’re having so much trouble with the PubIt stuff. I’m trying to look on the bright side of temporary reporting problem and looking forward to an exciting payday surprise when the numbers do show up. What’s been going on since Christmas hasn’t inspired confidence, but if it means that they’re just so inundated with sales that they can’t keep up, and they’re trying to keep up with the sales at the expense of reporting the sales during this period, I’ll take it.

      Even with the problems they had at Christmas, the difference in sales for December between the two was only like 7.5%. (If I got my math right. Which is definitely question.)

      1. I continue to do…nowhere near that well on BN. I had hoped that having a second title on there would help my visibility (since we’ve well established that FBS is not easily searchable given my unique mythology), but so far…not so much. I do better than some and have a respectable ranking I guess (FBS hangs out between 15-13k and Devil’s Eye has climbed to about 23k since its release), but I definitely haven’t been flying off the shelves like some. I continue to wonder why, but whatever. It’s still sales, and more so than any other vendor besides Amazon, so I’ll take it.

  1. I feel for you. My boss called me yesterday and told me to stay home again today. But he said he would go turn on my computer so I could actually work from home today instead of losing money!

    Devil’s Eye was great and deserves to be doing as well as it is. The PubIt thing is SO frustrating because Guardian Vampire has climbed higher there than any book I’ve had out, and I can’t even see what the sales are. I just hope the rank is correct. B & N really does need to study Amazon a little more closely. There are a lot of frustrated authors on the B & N forum right now.

    Yay for being #1 in Bargain Hot New Releases! That’s just awesome!

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