Hello from gorgeous cow country in upstate NY!
Have you heard the one about the guy who photographed his foot and became an Amazon bestseller?
Well, it's a cheeky story. Someone (not an author) had decided he would prove that it's easy to become an Amazon bestseller. So he took a photo of his foot, slapped together a homemade ebook cover, and assigned this "book" to some utterly bizarre category like "end-of-the-world prophecies in Jewish apocalyptic literature". Or something like that.
He then told all his friends about the joke and asked them to buy the book (which was 0.99). Lo and behold, only a little while later, he received the much-coveted orange flag, announcing himself as an "Amazon bestseller".
Well, he was cheating, of course. The entire Amazon system is an elaborate algorithm, so no one actually checks if the book is a book or a photo of a foot. And in such a tiny category as end of the world prophecies in Jewish apocalyptic literature (or something like that), selling a book a day will make you a "bestseller."
Anyway, that silly story was just a prelude. As you know, I wrote a book that isn't a photo of my foot. And thanks to you, it has indeed "won" an orange flag in a slightly less obscure category than EOTWPIJAL (that is, end of the world... you get the idea)
So thank you! I can now join the ranks with "foot photo man" as notable Amazon bestsellers :)
I'm also just behind in a slightly more relevant category: History of Russia. If you help me get there, I'll be immensely grateful. Oh, and the paperback version is now officially out as well.
If you haven't had a chance to buy Heroes for All Time yet, here's the link again.
You may also be relieved to know that this will be the last sales email for this book. I'm resuming my usual schedule for emails starting two weeks from today. At that point, I may have some very, very interesting news about The Song of the Sirin and a foreign rights deal... Stay tuned!
And thank you for coming along with me on my writerly adventures. It wouldn't be the same without you!
~Nicky