I have been very busy this weekend with work-related things and hardly had a breather, but now that the long hours are over, I think it’s time to sit down and talk Historical Lovecraft. The book’s official launch takes place April 20, but we’ve been having a pre-sale since the beginning of the month. While the performance of the book during this time will not necessarily reflect the overall performance in the future (it being pre-sale time), two conclusions can be drawn:
- Boy, it’s hard to sell books
- E-books are important
The first point may seem silly. We all know the book market is tight. What I’m really talking about is how sales are taking place. We’ve got online advertising going on in several places. Ads will also appear or are appearing in convention programs and specialized publications. Hits are high, but we need a better movement of sales. People are coming, looking, but not necessarily buying. However, I’ve also noticed that word of mouth seems to be very important. Some sales that we’ve made have taken place because somebody recommended this book. Although this is more anecdotal that anything (e-mails from happy customers saying someone told them they should check the anthology out), it really underscores the need for feedback from people. As reviewers start talking about the book and customers rate it on Goodreads or Amazon, sales ought to improve. If you have read the book, let us know what you think. I like hearing the feedback and, as I said before, it helps us sell books.
On to the second point. We did not know how e-book sales for an anthology would perform. Turns out my projections were too low. Sales for e-book copies have been much higher than expected compared to print sales, but that may just have to do with the price point. At $3.99, the e-book edition is much cheaper than a paperback of $14.99. Nevertheless, we are moving twice as many e-book copies as print copies. This may one day make a big difference on the kind of product we put out, but for now, take it as a little aside. Either way, we are definitely not selling a thousand e-copies and I don’t think the delivery method really changes things much for us indies. We still face stiff competition and the difficulty of getting the word out. E-books are not our silver bullet. Nevertheless, it’s imperative that books be offered in both formats. That is why we launched Historical Lovecraft in both print and e-book form at the same time. There didn’t seem much sense in delaying the e-book and pricing it at a high amount or even the same amount as the paperback (as some publishers have done).
Finally, if you are a reviewer and want to read the book, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll be happy to find a copy for you.
Look for several of our authors, including Orrin Grey (sorry about the mispelling, Orrin!), Molly Tanzer and Jesse Bullington at the World Horror Convention in just a few days. They’ll have some Historical Lovecraft bookmarks to give away. Snatch ‘em up and order a copy. Or two.
If I’ve been quietly lately it’s due to the amount of work I’m tackling. As you should know by now, if my advertising campaign is working, Historical Lovecraft is on pre-sale with 20% off. Stalin’s Russia, 10th century Rome and Neolithic Mesopotamia are just some of the backdrops before which madness and history collide (please buy one copy!).
Of course, this has meant lots of behind the scenes work, from stuffing envelopes full of bookmarks for the writers to give away (apparently, one of those envelopes was opened by Homeland Security, due to the dangers of Cthulhu), to making sure the ads are running, to getting reviews secured. This, coupled with the Cold from Hell, means I was already pretty exhausted, but just to add fuel to the fire we had to work on the selections for Candle in the Attic Window (our Gothic anthology out in the fall).
The slush is an interesting place and sometimes you get interesting replies from disgruntled writers. Recently we had one from someone complaining that we had replied too quickly to his submission. Why, yes, we reply quickly. After having a story in the slush pile for more than 18 months, I vowed never to let the same thing happen to a writer. This means that if I have to read until 4 a.m. to clear the slush, I will. Paula is the same. We both read a lot every day and try to keep the inbox clean.
Anyway, we have the table of contents for Candle in the Attic Window and contracts are set to go out in the next couple of weeks. One surprising thing we found out was that almost all poetry submissions were from women. This is in sharp contrast to short stories. Although this anthology had a more balanced gender pool, there are still more men than women submitting. I also had women e-mailing me to ask if they could submit this or that, with the men just sending their stuff.
We are now in stasis. Submissions for Future Lovecraft open in May and April should be an easy month (pray Jesus) that will allow Paula to join Script Frenzy. We are going to do an interview with D.L.Snell (very soon, I hope), which might shed some more light on what we want. But let me say very quickly I am personally looking for unusual settings and protagonists. It’s always seemed very odd to me that aliens only land in the United States. Hey, Vancouver is a jiving town!
Moving on to other matters: someone has requested a full manuscript of Proper People, my first novel. This meant looking over the whole thing again and trying to do revisions at the speed of light, just to ensure it’s looking good.
Due to all of the above I’ve had very little time to finish that Mexican zombies during the Revolution short story. I promise I shall, faithful reader.
I’ve spent most of the past few weeks working on stuff for Historical Lovecraft (which now thanks to Paula R. Stiles has a Facebook fan page). I’m happy to say the layout is finished and I’ve sent the PDF galleys to the writers for a final look. The book will be on sale April 20 with a pre-sale before that.
To celebrate, I decided to have some fun and make a fake cover for my story “A Puddle of Blood”, which will be appearing for real in the Evolve 2 anthology in the fall. Tanith Lee (squee) is also in this anthology.
Paula and I are slowly combing through the second reads for Candle in the Attic Window. We expect to have some answers for writers at the end of the month.
I recently got on Twitter. If you want to find me on Twitter look yo your left, under the links or look for silviamg.
Otherwise, everything is the usual. Oh, I’m going on vacation this summer, back to see the olde family. And I’m working on a short story called “Sand.” I really, really need to finish the revisions to the novel so I can send it out to some agents and such.
No sales reported this month, though there’s still a few more days in March.
Btw, I cut my hair shockingly short. I’ll post a picture on Facebook and Twitter sometime soon.