It’s been about a month since The Hanged Man’s Noose was published. If you’re like me, you probably thought some sort of switch would be pulled and the book would be instantly available everywhere. What I’ve learned since then is that while my book is distributed through Ingram (the largest book distributor in North America), each bookseller, whether they are online or brick-and-mortar, stock the books at a different pace (at least for unknown authors from small press publishers).
The first bookseller to list The Hanged Man’s Noose for sale was Amazon.com (in Kindle and print). Surprisingly, the next Amazon locations to get the novel were France and Japan (not sure how many English mystery readers there are in either county…). The point is, those countries stocked the book a full week ahead of Amazon Canada (go figure).
Over the next couple of weeks, other booksellers began to sell The Hanged Man’s Noose, a process I was able to track (I’ll admit somewhat compulsively) through bookfinder4u.com, a semi-accurate source in that it doesn’t list every bookseller. For example, my book is available at Chapters.Indigo.ca but it doesn’t show up on bookfinder4u. Discovering this was actually a relief: I could finally stop checking bookfinder4u every day and try to get back to my life as I knew it before getting published.
Don’t get me wrong: there are still plenty of other things to distract me from what I should be doing (writing the sequel to Noose and putting the finishing touches on my current work-in-progress). There’s social media: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter. Blog hopping. There’s also Author Central, an Amazon.com program which allows authors to view general sales statistics, (i.e. ranked 100,000 out of 1 million books on Amazon.com).
Distribution and distractions. Starting today, I’m going to stop worrying about the first, and make a concerted effort to limit the time I spend on the second. Just as soon as I finish scheduling some Facebook posts . . .
The Hanged Man’s Noose is now available in print and eBook at all the usual suspects.
But wait … There’s more! Click on the magnifying glass to sign up for my next quarterly (or so) newsletter, coming November 2015.
A month published already. Congratulations.
Yes, for you as well. Time flies…
I understand the many things on the list to do and the distractions from doing what we love to do-WRITE! Marketing is winning right now and family. Wish I could go hide- I’ve told myself once the first book is in lots of hands, it will be easier to do the second!!! Keep at it Judy– wonderful story.
Thanks Sheri, you did warn me that life would get very busy…and you were right!
Congratulations, Judy. It’s been a lot of fun following your journey. What a thrill it must be to go into a bookstore and see your book on the shelf. I read about an author who, with her family, stood in the aisles of a store and took pictures of her with her book on the shelf behind her.
Thanks Grace. I haven’t actually seen my book on the shelf yet. Right now it’s available in online stores, but I haven’t seen it in a brick-and-mortar. I am signing at Chapters in St. Catharines, Ontario, Saturday, September 5th from 1-4. Now THAT will be an experience! Thank you for following my journey.