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how to sell bukes
Recently Pam's and my dear friend Vera Nazarian (
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norilana) very kindly sent me a PDF of her (and Jane Austen's) latest novel, Mansfield Park & Mummies. Its publication represents something of a feat for Vera, who wrote her part of the collaboration in double quick time; even more of a triumph for Jane Austen, of course, her having been dead for a couple of centuries, an' all.Whatever: I must confess I approached the PDF with a certain amount of caution. I have the highest regard for Vera as a writer, but catching the voice of Austen is a difficult enough trick for an English writer, let alone one who's a Russian immigree, now naturalized here in the US. Might I be in for one of those embarrassing moments when one has to explain to a writer friend that their latest little darlin' is differently good?
As I should have known, because Vera's a disgustingly clever sprout, I needn't have worried. After a couple of chapters I was grinning with pleasure . . . and promptly rushed off to Amazon to buy myself a copy of the print version.
But stay. Is this not the Season of Good Will? Am I not Father War On Christmas? Is Amazon not offering free shipping on orders over 25 bucks? So there's a friend who's going to get an extra little delight in their Solstitial Stocking.
The book, to judge by my reading so far, really is that good.
Once I'd ordered my copies, I reflected in this wise: Clearly, if sending a single PDF of a book can sell two copies of the printed version, Vera should be sending out the PDF to thousands and thousands of folk. She might be wise to investigate the possibilities of hacking into one of the really big e-mailing lists -- like the one at the New York Times, for example. Further, if this can work for Vera, surely I too should be sending out billions of PDFs of each new book of mine own?
It's all food for thought, innit, and I shall indeed think about it in bed tonight. When I wake up, it'll be Thanksgiving, this year foolishly displaced by a few days from its natural scheduling of coincidence with my birthday. So, Happy Thanksgiving, all!
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Hm. I see I wrote this a bit unclearly and have made a clumsy amendment: my birthday was the other day. The US authorities try to get Thanksgiving on the right day, but about six times out of seven they narrowly miss.
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I thought the norm was to set Thanksgiving on my father's birthday, which happens to be tomorrow.
Well, that explains why the authorities so often miss the correct date, then. They're confused and distracted by this extra, spurious claim.
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Happy Thanksgiving!!!
And thank you so much for the kind book plug! The mummies need all the help they can get! :-)
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Hm. I see I wrote this a bit unclearly and have made a clumsy amendment: my birthday was the other day. The US authorities try to get Thanksgiving on the right day, but about six times out of seven they narrowly miss.
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Hm. I see I wrote this a bit unclearly and have made a clumsy amendment: my birthday was the other day. The US authorities try to get Thanksgiving on the right day, but about six times out of seven they narrowly miss.
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Happy Turkey Day to you and your significant P!
xxoo
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And happy Turkey Day right back attya, S.T.!
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Lol, I feel sorry for the poor guy manning the ouija board :)
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I feel sorry for the poor guy manning the ouija board
So that explains why there's a 150pp section in the middle of the book that reads nothing more than "YES YES NO YES NO NO YES YES YES YES NO NO NO NO NO NO YES" repeated indefinitely.
And I thought it was a love scene . . .