Perfect Place to Die

I didn’t really think any of my books would ever pop up on a “don’t let this in a library” list. Sure, some of them can get a wee bit bloody, but there’s much (much) more extreme stuff out there. My books have pretty much no sex. Little in the way of language. What would be there for someone to really dig in and object to? So imagine my surprise when I heard from a librarian yesterday that The Perfect Place to Die had popped up on the “don’t order this” radar. The librarian had submitted a book order a

When you sell a book as an author, you sell it for an “advance against royalties.” You also negotiate a certain percentage of each book’s cover price that will be your royalty rate; for each book sold, you’ll get that amount of money. So if your book sells for $10, and your royalty rate is 10%, every book sold gets you $1. Yay! However, you don’t actually see any of this money until that advance you got is “earned out.” It’s not a signing bonus. It’s the amount of money the publisher thinks you’ll likely make for your royalties on

Okay, folks. Time to get real for a minute, because I realize this is a topic that’s near and dear to many people’s hearts, and I just want to get my thoughts out there. This is largely spawned by a random Tweet aimed at me last night (though it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, off and on.) Last night as I was about to go to bed, I saw I was mentioned in a Tweet. When I went to check it out, it turned out to be a page of my book with a line with a

As an author, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that people will periodically ask me how my books are selling. You would think if anyone would know, it would be the author. And yet you’d be surprised to find out how little we actually do know. It feels in many ways like I’m interpreting tea leaves more than having any real idea of what’s going on. With Vodník, the sales were hard to see at all. Its release failed to make much of a splash, and I would say that ultimately the book underperformed. That said, it was published by

I’m off to another library meeting today and tomorrow, but I wanted to pop in quickly before I leave to let people know that if they’d like to have a signed copy of THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE, I’ve arranged with my local bookstore (Devaney, Doak & Garrett) to let people order one from them and ask for a signed copy. If you’d like it addressed to someone, or to have me write a message in it as well, you can let them know that when you order it. They’ll then let me know they need my John Hancock, and