Jeri Smith-Ready

Win stuff! Eyes of Crow pre-order

Lots of exciting news has built up over the last two weeks, but the one that psyches me up the most (next to the Ravens snagging former MVP quarterback Steve McNair from the Titans) is that Eyes of Crow is now available for pre-order on Amazon. This is actually happening!

But I need your help.

Booksellers decide how many books to order from the publisher 4-6 months ahead of release date. Right now, in a dusty backroom of your local bookstore, and in the cavernous warehouses of Amazon.com, people are making calculations that determine the fates of authors' careers.

Not to be dramatic or anything, but it's true. Publishing is neither a charity nor an arts foundation; it's a business.

Early orders affect print runs, and if my publisher sees a lot of enthusiasm from booksellers, they'll get excited and support the book with more marketing dollars.

One weird thing about this business is that there are very few "surprise hits." Publishers pretty much decide which books will succeed and which will fail, and allocate their promotional resources accordingly, thus fulfilling their own prophecies.

They're like a wild animal with a big litter of babies. The runts get shoved out of the nest or den and left to die, while the robust ones get all the good milk or worms or crickets or whatever. It's not cruel, it's just survival.

I have no way of knowing at this point whether I'm in the runt category. The fact that Eyes of Crow is slated for a November release is a good sign; fall is the big fiction season for "serious" books--i.e., non-beach reading. The fact that no other original Luna titles are scheduled for that month is probably also a good sign.

Beyond that, it's hard for me to find out how they truly feel about it without asking a lot of nosy questions they'd rather not answer--questions about sales budgets, print runs, etc. Things you don't tell the children.

So I'll make you an offer: if you place a pre-order* for Eyes of Crow and e-mail me your receipt (take out any personal billing info you'd rather not share), I'll send you an autographed limited First Edition chapbook containing the first three chapters, which is a lot more than you can read here.

Only 100 of these chapbooks were printed, and I have about thirty left. I might do a second printing at some point, but those will clearly say "Second Edition--Utterly Worthless" on them.

But wait--that's not all!

Everyone who sends me a pre-order receipt will be put in a drawing for a free autographed copy of Eyes of Crow. I'll do the drawing October 15, so if you win, you'll have time to cancel your order before it's shipped. And since Amazon doesn't charge you until your order ships, you can't lose!

If you want, I'll even get Steve McNair to sign it for you.

*If you don't want to go through Amazon.com, it would be equally as helpful to me, if not more, for you to order it at your local bookstore. I've been told that the big chain stores already have it in their computers, and I know of at least one independent bookseller who has it.

Labels: Eyes of Crow

• posted by Jeri @ 8:50 AM
• 12 comments