>Sales Rankings
>Okay, I admit it. I have Amazon sales ranking fever. Every once in a while (or every two seconds) I check to see what ranking my various books have on Amazon. It's a horrible, time-consuming illness. But I need to know exactly where my career is at! Of course, just checking Amazon isn't enough. I actually use three different websites to keep track of the rankings.
The first is Aaron Shepard's Sales Rank Express. Doesn't Aaron look friendly? This allows the user to look at the rankings in "top selling" order and get a quick look at other countries. C'mon Japan, just buy one book. One book, that's all I'm asking.
The second website I use is TitleZ. Here you can sign up your books and see the "historical" sales of your various novels and even compare up to five of them at once. It's a good way to look back at your career and see where the high point was and then watch your slide into oblivion (also known as 5 millionth bestseller on Amazon).
By far my favourite is NovelRank. At this site you have to register your books and it will keep track of them from that day forward. At first I didn't see how effective the site was until my books were tracked for a couple of months. Now I can look at their total sales (and it does actually break down how many copies you sell, using a complicated x-y-market=geewhiz formula). You are able to choose in which order you want the books ranked (Sales/RecentSales/Monthly sales) and you can see how your books are doing head to head.
As you can see by the graphic above Jolted is outselling The Dark Deeps by 26-24! What an exciting battle. It's like a football game without the action. Who will win at the end of the month? Which book will sell better over time? Which will make me the most money (right now I'm cheering for Dark Deeps since it's in hardcover). As you can see the NovelRank keeps tabs on the last time one of your books sold. 20 Hours! That's a lifetime (for a gnat, anyway). Good golly, my career is already on the way down.
Anyway, kidding aside I appreciate the way NovelRank works and how it allows me to change the format.
Hmmm....maybe I should just be seeing a therapist instead...
>SiWC and TD CCBC Book Award Bash in Coquitlam
>This past weekend I was at the Surrey International Writer's Conference in Surrey, BC. It was an energizing, tiring, overwhelming, frenzied and wonderful conference. 500 attendees. Agents. Editors. Writers Galore and more classes than you can shake a stick at. I did a presentation on "Making Money with your Writing" and "Fantastically Speaking: weaving fantasy with reality (in novels)." Oh and two Blue Pencil sessions and a Keynote speech. Very busy and rewarding time. And this is the only pic I took.
Boring, eh?
Then on Monday I was off to Scott Creek Middle School. They had won an "appearance" by me through CBC and provided by TD Bank in honour of the TD CCBC Children's Lit Book Award that The Hunchback Assignments is nominated for. It was a wonderful time. And hour in a gym with 600 or so excited students while being interviewed by CBC and the students. Many of them were JOLTED fans:
One of the teachers in JOLTED outfit--he had a cool first name: Arthur!
One of the many Posters
And librarian extra-ordinaire Tu Loan Trieu!
It truly was one of the highlights of my career. At one point about 100 of the students came in wearing tinfoil hats...just like Newton in JOLTED.
Stay tuned for the show on CBC Radio in Vancouver on Nov. 7th.
Cheers,
>Copy Edited MSS
>
This is what I'm doing today (and for the next week at least)--going through the Word version of the copy edited manuscript for Empire of Ruins, the third Hunchback Assignments book. Isn't it colourful? Sometimes confusing. And yet I feel a bit like a kid with a new set of crayons.
Well back to scribbling electronically...
>JLG and Shout Line
>
First off, I'm pleased to report that The Dark Deeps is a Junior Library Guild selection in the US. It is so cool to have a book that features The Clockwork Guild be recognized by The Junior Library Guild. Long live the guilds! On top of that I get a neat JLG badge and award certificate. It's like I've joined a superhero club! A nice mixture of books there. I'm especially looking forward to reading fellow Canuck writer Erin Bow's Plain Kate.
Also received a jpg of the Australian cover for Empire of Ruins, the third Hunchback Assignments book. I love this cover (the Canadian version will have the same cover) and I like the font choice, too. As you can see it says "shoutline here" on the bottom. A shoutline has appeared on the other two Hunchback Assignments books, the first being "Unmask the Truth" and the Dark Deeps shoutline was "Unravel the Lies." I've asked for "Uncoop the Chickens" but no one seems to like it. I'm sure we'll find something...
>The Dark Deep Blogs Tour is Over!
>
Whew, what a tiring tour. I mean I was everywhere, man. And I didn't even leave my home (except to get milk). Here's the recap.
First I started off at Home Base...err, my blog.
Then I was off to Cynsations discussing how to write steampunk in two easy steps.
I then zipped over to Free The Princess and answer a few Q&A's.
Last Monday I was at Steamed. Where I discussed the creation of the book trailers for The Hunchback Assignments.
I then airshipped over to Steampunk Tribune to discuss villains! Villains! Villains.
This was followed by a musical interlude at Suvudu to let you all know the playlist behind The Hunchback Assignments.
Then I waxed all philosphical at Steampunk Scholar.
And the tour ended with a bang at Looking Glass Review .
Now, I'll sleep.
