happy bookday Archives

Posts Tagged ‘happy bookday’

DRIFTWOOD is out!

Happy book day to me! It feels a little strange saying that on a Friday. 🙂

Driftwood goes on sale today. If you’re getting a print book, I heartily encourage you to order it from a local bookstore; they need your support more than ever right now. I also recommend making use of IndieBound or Bookshop.org, both of which can help you support a local business (in the latter case, either directly or through your purchase going to a general pool for participating stores).

I’m . . . frankly astonished at how good the response to this book has been. I could wish it hadn’t hit at the right time for “how do you decide what matters to you and hold into that in the face of destruction?” to be such a resonant question, but here we are, and it’s gotten a trifecta of starred reviews from Publishers’ Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, along with positive mentions from a score of other venues so far. The premise may be bleak — worlds crumbling en route to their final destruction — but ultimately this is a book about friendship, community, and not giving up. If that sounds like something you would want to read, maybe not today, but some day, then I heartily encourage you to pick it up.

Oh, and also? I GOT A FRICKIN’ 3D AR COVER HOW COOL IS THAT. 😀 😀 😀

NEVER AFTER is out now!

Get yer pipin’ hot flash-length fairy tales here!

. . . you guys? I have NO IDEA what has happened with this book. For some reason it blew all my previous stats for pre-orders completely out of the water, and it’s continued to do so after release. It has sold more copies in its first day (including pre-orders) than Monstrous Beauty did in its first six months — that being the most comparable title in terms of price ($0.99) and content (very brief fairy tale retellings). I can point to lots of other variables, of course: I published Monstrous Beauty in 2014; my audience has probably grown since then. That one is more directly horror; this one is lighter-hearted with its twists. Maybe this one has a better title. Maybe it has better cover art. Maybe maybe maybe. The truth is, I have no way of knowing. (And this is why the publishing industry has so much trouble predicting what will be a bestseller and what will sink.)

All I know is, this has completely warped the bar graph Amazon uses to show me my sales. There’s now this giant spike, next to which my normal daily sales have been compressed to itty-bitty nubbins. 😛

(I’m not complaining. I’m just astonished. And wishing this had happened on a book that earned me more than thirty-five cents for every copy I sell . . .)

Anyway, Never After: Thirteen Twists on Familiar Tales is out now! And making a far bigger splash than I ever anticipated when I first thought, “hey, I could bundle up my flash retellings and put them out as a silly little side project for National Tell a Fairy Tale Day.”

It’s a twofer day: COLD-FORGED FLAME and A STAR SHALL FALL!

It’s out!

PLEASE NOTE: this is a novella. Which is shorter than a novel. I already anticipate there will be reviews to the effect of “I thought I was getting a whole book but I wasn’t” — novellas are making a comeback, but they’re not yet so widespread that the occasional reader won’t be blindsided by the shorter length.

But if you want a whole novel’s worth of stuff, I got you covered there, too!

That’s right — at long last, A Star Shall Fall is out in the UK! Unlike the previous two Onyx Court books, this one has never been published in that country before. Only one more to go, and you can collect a full matched set . . .

(And if you think this is a big day, wait until April 25th of next year, when you’ll get Within the Sanctuary of Wings [Memoirs of Lady Trent #5] and Lightning in the Blood [Varekai #2] on the same day!)

Let’s get Conspiring!

Thaaaaaaat’s right, folks . . . it’s the street date for With Fate Conspire.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a little nervous about this one. I have a lot of reasons to be: it’s the end of the series (at least for now), which always raises the questions of “did I stick the landing?” Also, it’s my first hardcover release, which brings extra hopes and expectations. Also also, well, let’s face it: this is a rough time for the publishing industry, what with Borders going belly-up. Nobody really knows what that’s going to do to sales figures, but it’s going to be rocky, that’s for sure.

Which is by way of introducing a small plea: if you intend to buy this book, then sooner is better than later and in a store is better than online (unless you’re buying the ebook, of course). And if you like the series, tell people about it. (Heck, tell people about it even if you don’t like it! My ego will survive.)

Onward to the reviews!

Liz Bourke at Tor.com approves of the working-class and Irish bent of the book.

Cat Barson at Steampunk Chronicle reviews the book for fans of steampunk, and mostly likes it.

Sarah at Bookworm Blues hasn’t read the previous books in the series, and also isn’t a fan of faerie fantasy, but still enjoyed this one.

Also, I have the Big Idea slot today at John Scalzi’s blog Whatever (which previously hosted a Big Idea for Midnight Never Come). And finally, SF Signal has included With Fate Conspire as one of the three contenders in their most recent Book Cover Smackdown.

Now I need to decide whether my professional duty to go see my book in the store is strong enough to overcome the incredible soreness of my quads . . . ah, the downsides of biking for such errands.

happy bookday to Jim Hines!

If I hadn’t been struck down yesterday by the Respiratory Bug of Suck, I would totally have gone to a bookstore today to buy Jim Hines’ new novel The Stepsister Scheme. Curse you, cold!

No, really. I enjoyed Jim’s goblin books, but this time he’s gotten away from those icky little blue guys and gone on to princesses! NINJA PRINCESSES! Which are, as everyone knows, the best kind.

Okay, so, yeah, this time he’s written a book so far up my alley it would be in my house if only I had the energy to go buy it. But if ninja princesses aren’t a big enough selling point on their own (what’s wrong with you people?), then I can also vouch for the author’s sense of humour and ability to play interestingly within the rules of the story-paradigm he’s exploring. Last time that was D&D-style fantasy; this time, it’s fairy tales, with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella going all Charlie’s Angels on their problems. I do not know yet if there are any villains as awesome as Maleficent, but if not — hey! jimhines! Get on that!

I’m tempted to just let Amazon deliver it to my door, thus saving me a trip to the bookstore, but that would be going against my own advice, so I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I can read this one. But those of you who aren’t ill? You have no excuse.