Happiness is Paperbacks

First off, Art of Death is currently the #3 paperback on Dreamspinner Press's website.  That kind of boggles my mind, especially since the ebook is nowhere near as high in the respective rankings.  I have no complaints, but I have to wonder what's driving the paperback sales when paperbacks are so much more expensive than ebooks.  A friend told me it might be because of the cover art.  If that's the case, I should give that "Shobana Appavu" chick a pat on the back. ;)  Better yet, I think I'll buy her dinner tomorrow.  Actually, I'll go ahead and buy her the vast majority of her dinners for the rest of her life, and pay all her bills.  I like that Shobana person.  She's quality.

:ahem:  My own five author copies arrived in the mail a couple days ago.  I was a little bummed that the corners of all five copies were badly creased in shipping, so I bought a couple more on Amazon just so I'd have a flawless copy to keep.  Oh well, this just means I can do more giveaways, and I can make up for the creased corners by adding some pretty drawings inside.

I think this is my version of when people photograph sports cars with bikini-clad models posed on the hoods.  That's Ebo, currently a little crabby and wondering why I woke him up for no good reason.  It was actually a very risky photo shoot because one of Ebo's biggest hobbies is eating books.  Almost all of my favorite books have Ebo-sized bites taken out of the covers.

The cover printed a bit on the magenta side, but overall I'm pleased with the outcome, and it's kind of surreal seeing my fingerprints all over Riley's face.  Also surreal is seeing the names of my characters printed on actual paper.

And finally in paperbacks, over 800 people are now requesting the Goodreads paperback giveaway for Art of Death.  A lot of the askers don't seem to be m/m readers, so in a way I feel like I'm trading a future 1-star review for a bit of increased visibility, but that's fine by me.  I think part of the journey of publishing your first book is wading through the sea of readers with their own specific tastes and trying to find the ones who match up with what you want to say.  I like to push boundaries and write on the fringe of the genre, so I expect a little trial and error.