Every time one of my books is released, going all the way back to the very first of my westerns under the Marcus Galloway pseudonym, I tell myself I won't go out to bookstores looking for it on the shelves. I realize I'm not a huge name and the booksellers don't get around to stocking my wares right away. Even with these expectations, I still feel the little twinge in my gut when my big day comes and goes without the very important retail portion of the equation seeming to notice. No big drama. Just an uncomfortable twinge.
Or maybe it's just the stores in my home town. When I went to the major chains for BLOOD BLADE and HOWLING LEGION, I had to ask for them since they weren't anywhere to be found. The clerk had to go in back, put on a miner's cap with one of those little lights on it, venture into the bottom of the stacks, disappear for 10 minutes, take a coffee break, venture back, place their miner's hat somewhere to recharge the light's battery and then finally hand a new book over to someone who wanted to see it on the shelves FRONT AND CENTER!! Well, this time was a little different.
When I went to a local Borders, TEETH OF BEASTS wasn't on the New Release shelf. It was on the top of a stack on a cart, ready to be stocked. At Barnes & Noble, it was on the New Release shelf at the front of the science fiction / fantasy section. Not quite the super-cool New Release tower at the front of the store, but still pretty good! Progress!! And, they had copies of the first two! The whole idea is for the series to expand and take up more space on the shelf so more readers are drawn to my awesomeness. I'd even accept them being drawn to the awesomeness of the covers.
For now, things seem to be plugging away nicely. I still won't obsess about reviews or the sales numbers on Amazon simply because I can't do a lot about that stuff right now. I'll be making some rounds to spread the word either way and will always do my best to promote no matter what the numbers are. The rest is a lot of "wait and see".
So let me know what you think of the new book. Comment here whenever you like. Hopefully I can see some of you at one of these upcoming conventions. I'm also trying to arrange some more con appearances, but a lot of the good ones are in October and there are only so many weekends to work with. Fortunately, going to a bunch of horror / fantasy cons in a row doesn't sound like a terrible thing. I'll work something out. In the meantime, it's back to work for me!!
