I Met a Man Who Makes My Life Seem Perfect

Yeesh. Bet you thought I'd never get around to posting again, and I was beginning to think so myself. But 3 out of 5 of THE LITTLEST DOUBTS launch parties are now in the books (thanks Margo, Candace, and Carrie), my youngest's birthday has been celebrated (thank you, Chuck E. Cheese--you make my life feel comparatively calm and quiet), the poster for the upcoming MIA AND THE MAGIC CUPCAKES happened (thank you, Teri and Office Max), and today is catch-up.

It's been an educational couple weeks, and I'd better download my learning nuggets here before they're all forgotten again:

1. Malcolm Gladwell was right. About "mavens," that is. In THE TIPPING POINT he talks about some people being natural influences because they get very enthusiastic about things and tell other people. My books have not yet attracted any influencers with a capital "I," but my husband's aunt Stella is now the closest thing in my little universe. After being leery when I told her MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA has some f-words, she is now fully on board and has passed it along to whoever will listen to her and just bought eight sets of MBC and THE LITTLEST DOUBTS to give away. Including a set apiece to a pair of cousins who will almost certainly let them molder in a drawer or weigh down the Goodwill bags.

2. You can't let the first book in a series go out of print. That was my plan for MBC after I got through the last printing, but now I see that I'll still need those puppies to promote the second book. In fact, MBC has gotten a little bounce from the second book because people are happy to discover the writer has more than one book in her. Yeah, don't mistake ME for Margaret Mitchell or Harper Lee or any other of those one-hit wonders! I thought it would take selling 250 copies of TLD to break even, but with the bump in MBC sales and Kindle (see #3), it won't even take that many.

3. Kindle and Kindleboards are my friends. Yes, I'll keep putting out print books for now, but I've got my eye on those Kindle editions! Since putting a couple little posts on these Kindleboards I'd never heard of, I've sold 25+ additional copies of MBC in a couple weeks. Usually I only sell a handful a month! And several of those purchasers went on to get TLD, even though it's not at MBC's bargain price ($2.99). Amazon takes 65%, but since most of these sales are to people who would never have found me otherwise, and since the Kindle copies cost me nothing in production or shipping, I'm not unhappy.

4. University Book Store Bellevue contines to be my Best Bookstore Friend. Not only have they ordered 24 copies for the official launch on Wed, June 9, but they continue to stock MBC and will host my first TLD bookstore event in July, date TBD. Even if you aren't local, check them out for their free shipping and free gift-wrapping!

5. I am procrastinating. Okay, I don't have a fifth point coming to mind, but I do have many, many errands to run and haven't written a lick on my cruise book in about five days. Read Colm Toibin's BROOKLYN, though, and enjoyed it, despite never feeling very close to the protagonist. And Olive Prouty's 1923 STELLA DALLAS is a real page-turner!