On Second Thought

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

does an angel still get his wings?

[House of Mustard]

The angel is replaced by some voice called The Guardian, who we later learn is the main character's deceased Dad.

[EUOL]

"This book is truly a charitable creation.  Mr. Downs does an admirable job of lowering his audiences expectations, thereby allowing the rest of us to look better by comparison."

[House of Mustard]

It was the plot that was bad, so I chose to compliment something else in my quote.  So I talked about the theme and the characterization and ignored the plot--that way I could compliment the book and still be honest.

[EUOL]

So, HoM, how were sales the last couple of months?  Did they keep up with that first month?  

[House of Mustard]

The most recent sales figures I have are about a month and a half old, but here's how they stood:

Books: 4500
CDs: 950
Tapes: 650

I don't know what has happened in the last month or so, but I imagine that I've sold about another 1000.  Things have slowed down quite a bit recently since I'm no longer being actively advertised (I'm still in the catalogs, but on page six or seven instead of one.)

[stacer]

That's quite a fine selling record, especially for a first novel. Most authors only sell about 5000 books in the life of the book, and certainly the life of your book isn't nearly done yet. And for the LDS market, a much smaller niche market, that's an even better record. Good job!

[House of Mustard]

The LDS market is a weird thing.  Unlike major national publishing houses, where one in ten books will hit it big and the rest don't even pay for themselves, almost 70 or 80% of LDS books will sell at least 6,000 copies.  Also, LDS books (because there are fewer of them) tend to have a pretty long shelf life, and don't go out of print nearly as fast as things do nationally.  (Seagull Book is especially good at this.  Deseret Book likes to rotate their stock pretty often, but Seagull will keep pushing stuff for a long time -- my book is still on their new release shelf even though it's been out for four months.)

[EUOL]

That's cool.  And, of course, the more books you publish, the more you'll sell of your older titles.  If Covenant is serious about making you into one of their big names, you could easily sell another big run of SECOND THOUGHT next year when your other book comes out.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Oh, are you going to write a sequel and call it "For My Next Thought?"

[Fellfrosch]

"And now for a completely different thought."

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I could see a really weird use of this "thought" word for book titles.

[JP Dogberry]

That's because your thoughts are really weird.

[House of Mustard]

REWIND by Jeff Downs is out now, and the quote that I gave is on the back.  The publisher really hacked it up.  I'm not misquoted, since its still the basic gist of what I was saying, but it looks like I can't write complete sentences.

[EUOL]

...They sent you the book at the end of May when they were publishing it in early August?  That doesn't seem like much time....