Harry
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WHERE THINGS STAND WITH THE TWISTED PATH AFTER ONE WHOLE DAY
🕑 Added 2017-12-19 16:23:58 +0000 UTC [It seemed redundant to post a download link to the new 20P novella on Patreon and also the permanent post for it. Instead, I'm going to put up this followup post, which links back to the main post.]Let’s see:
The Twisted Path has its permanent reference post up on my blog. I also added the cover art to the front page in the Twenty Palaces section. (That felt good.)
I posted a download link for Patreon supporters, and sent messages to patrons who quit the service after their quickly reverted rate changes.
At nine-thirty-ish last night, I started sending out the newsletter announcing the book was available. As I type this at about three o’clock the next afternoon, it’s going to be another eight and a half hours before they finish sending. (To prevent throttling by my ISP, they go out at a rate of only 50/hr) So far, only four unsubscribes, which is pretty good considering it’s been a year and a half since the last one.
The first Goodreads and Amazon reviews have appeared. I’ve sent a copy to someone who may post a review on a high-traffic site (fingers crossed). I’ve sent a copy to Booklife, who gave The Way into Chaos a starred review and will maybe consider reviewing this one.
For the moment, the Amazon sales rank is below 1800, which is a very nice place to be.
In the reference post mentioned above, I reminded folks about the Twenty Palaces novelette “The Homemade Mask”, which was part of my short fiction collection. I thought I hit the 20P connection pretty hard back in 2014 when it came out, but in today’s sudden surge of new sales, about 10% have been the collection. The frontlist drives the backlist, I guess.
I also realized that I’ve spelled “The Homemade Mask” many different ways, including “The Hand Made Mask” at least once. Oops.
iBooks keeps kicking back the files I upload, giving me impenetrable error codes that are deciphered by Apple support through an exchange of emails. Not exactly timely.
B&N have finally posted the book for sale, but as of two seconds ago, without the cover. If I look at all the books written by people with my name, the cover art is there. If I click and go to the dedicated page, it’s “Image not available.” And email has been sent on that issue, too.
Did I mention that Nook has the most infuriating ebook uploading system? Worse even than iBooks. Centered text isn’t centered, and if you go into their manuscript editing section and manually set the text to be centered, it still isn’t centered. Have internal art? Set the size to very small and watch nothing happen. The world needs more skilled coders because the ones we have are making my blood pressure shoot through the roof.
Smashwords remains hilariously demanding for the amount of sales it provides. I’m not reading a fucking style guide for a couple of dozen sales. The epub is fine. Just accept it.
Amazon remains the center of book sales, and an odd duck. I uploaded the file from my own author page, but the book isn’t connected with my other works yet. I had to ask for that to be done separately, and it should take a few days. I’m also not sure how well the new book is connected to the rest of the series. I listed it as the fourth 20P in the information page as I was uploading it, but it doesn’t show. I also just noticed that the paper version of the prequel novel, Twenty Palaces, is listed as part of the series, but the Kindle edition is not.
Also, in the past I refused to give Amazon permission to sell my books in Mexico, India, Japan, and Brazil. Those are big markets, but unless you sell exclusively through Amazon, they won’t take a 30% sales commission. Instead, they take 65%. I’d rather not sell in those markets than be leaned on for a sixty-fucking-five percent commission, but the book wouldn’t publish unless I signed up for them. Which is annoying. Wish I could opt out.
In the middle of all this, I tucked my 27″ iMac into a canvas bag and took a bus out to the Apple store to get them to repair a dead ethernet plug. In the end, dude fixed it by rebooting and holding down a special combination of keys that reset the peripherals. Voila, the ethernet appeared in my network preferences again. Which meant I spent two hours, three-quarters of that on a bus, to do something I could have googled up at home. Go me.
Thank you to everyone posting reviews, talking about it on social media, dropping notes on reddit, and spreading the word in places I don’t even know about. Your enthusiasm is what makes this work.
Now to wrestle with iBooks again.
