Jamie Patterson's Blog, page 20

Heck yes! Broke the top 50,000

I'm happy to announce that after a few days back down in the 300,000 rankings Lost Edens just inched its way up to:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,915 in Books

I don't get reports until the end of the month about how many books it took to get up to the top 50,000 but I'll be sure to let you know when I know numbers.

There are two books that I categorize with Lost Edens because to me the content is pretty darn similar. The first is Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story, which is currently ranked #59,276 so I'm feeling pretty good about myself for today. Actually, I read this book on my way to Hawaii last December and by the time I landed I was ready to pull the plug on Lost Edens because I thought Isabel Gillies did such a magnificent job of describing what it's like to lose a marriage and lose yourself.

The second book is This is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness, which is currently ranked #187,473.

Hooray for Lost Edens. For today, at least.

Those Amazon rankings change by the hour, so maybe I should say this is a very happy hour for Lost Edens. Which is fitting because I do recommend a nice drink with the book!

New goal: Top 40,000

How are Book Sales?

I'm getting this question a lot lately and the short answer is "good." The longer answer is "not as good as a year from now." I'm planning on kind of a long ramp up, following the typical bell curve of most indie books.

My plan is for October, November, and December to be months dedicated to getting more solid reviews (good or bad, just proof someone is reading!) and a good base of first readers who will (hopefully) pass the book along or word of the book along so that when spring comes I'll have a good amount of credibility as we broaden distribution. The eBook should be launched some time in January.

Now the answer is really, really long but now you know: sales are just about perfect for where I want to be right now, with the hope that we're laying the groundwork for a strong spring. So, basically, I'm hoping for some good old fashioned buzz to start generating so that I can start fielding phone calls from friends of friends of friends who would like to see if I'd come chat with their book club in Miami about Lost Edens. And the answer is yes. Especially if the book club is meeting somewhere south of Minneapolis in January, the answer will always be yes!

Too Cool for School

Okay, so I still don't get the whole putting your dog in clothes thing but putting your dog in your 2-year-old niece's sunglasses = hilarious. Poor Huey.

Going Indie

I decided to publish with a mentor publisher without even really querying any traditional publishers (just one). I'm not sure why but I was convinced pretty early on that the traditional route for publishing wouldn't be a wise choice for Lost Edens. There are a few factors that played into the decision, the biggest of which is that it's a short book. It's less than 50,000 words, the industry standard for books. I had one agent tell me she liked what she read but it was too short. She suggested smaller presses, which is what eventually brought me to Beaver's Pond Press.

I'm just now starting to feel the consequences of that decision. As a mentor publisher, we went through all the same stages as we would have with a smaller press from editing to design, to proofreading. Now, though, the placement and sales of the book is all on me. I have terrific help in Stephanie Barko, a book publicist who as been my guide through the whole marketing of the book, but as the audience is slowly broadening it's become pretty apparent that book sales will be me hand selling each book. Which, I admit, is in part what I wanted. I'm really interested in a grassroots effort where Lost Edens is handed from person to person and conversations around the book are started and continued. It will be really interesting to see if this is possible.

The good news is that I've completely busted through the average sales for a first book (75 copies), which is terrific. The bad news is that I have a few thousand to go before I have respectable enough sales to be able to call this project successful. I think I'm going to need to get over my "oh, you really don't need to read it" reaction when people ask. It really is a shame it's so sad but hopefully there's enough hope in the ending to make the read worthwhile. I keep saying it but truly, my next book will be funny. Or about something really cool like...travel or running or jokes grammar geeks tell. Very cool.

Smells Like Waikiki

Quick update on my No Shopping for a Year adventure. Now I have just nine months left and I'm doing great. Still haven't bought anything and even better I can go shopping with my sister and not feel at all tempted to buy something. Not even at Target (will wonders never cease).

It really has been completely liberating to continue to remove things from my closet and really live with what I have. It's a more purposeful way of living and I dig it. I also decided to use all of the lotions and perfumes in my closet, which might not have been the smartest idea. I finally, finally moved on from the Limon scent of lotion and I'm thinking I might have to just throw all the remaining scents. I got in the car for the latest Target shop with my sister and she told me I smelled like an old lady. That would have been Thymes's Azur, of which I have two full bottles.

I haven't even started on all the Bath and Body lotions that have piled into my shelves after 2-for-1 deals. Right now I'm working on getting through all my hotel lotions (why do I bring those home?!). Today, I smell like the Parc in Waikiki and I really can't complain. I might have to complain, though, if I actually use the lotion from Days Hotel Hounslow. A great place to crash but not a great place to smell. Here or there.

Feeling Alright

I loved the show Ally McBeal. Inexplicable, really, but one thing I always loved was Ally's theme song, as in the song she would play in her head to pump herself up. Didn't other characters have theme songs? I forget what songs there were, but I think they changed now and then for each character.

I'm one of those people who could listen to the same song a dozen times in a row so I've definitely had theme songs throughout my life just by default. Right now, I'd say my theme song is Joe Cocker's Feeling Alright, really just for the chorus*. Not too surprising, I'm sure, my theme song during the time I wrote Lost Edens was Adrianne's 10,000 Stones. Man, so depressing. I think I moved on to Pink's So What for a little bit more upbeat sad song. Glad that was just a brief moment in my life but thank God there's music and books and art to make us feel like we aren't alone.

Joe Cocker & Leon Russell - Feeling Alright

*Hmmmm....Just listened to the lyrics closely for the first time and Feeling Alright really isn't at all about feeling alright. Way too bad. Must find new theme song.

The Power of Writing (Even if it ain't Good)

Tonight my sister and I went out to run errands and we found ourselves browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble. I came across a book called Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation and was kind of rooted in place for awhile as I flipped through the pages.

What held me there was the writing in these letters. Many of them were from uneducated, poor Americans who took to paper the best they could to express their sorrow and to reach out and offer prayers and condolences. Many of them noted that they couldn't write well ("I wish I write fasser") but still, they wrote. And not knowing how to spell words or even construct a proper sentence ("I sorry for the kill") the intention was there and it was heartbreaking.

I think it was the goodwill that came through more than anything and the inability of these folks to express themselves in writing in a traditional form didn't impede the meaning. It made me think about how I struggle as a writer to allow the emotion to remain and yet still present a clean, grammatically correct text. I was feeling like I need to just ignore that internal editor and sit down and write when I opened up Lost Edens and saw a lay versus lie issue that we missed in all the rounds of editing. Does it matter, really, that lay is where lie should be? I still think it does. But the letters I read tonight reminded me that what matters more is what brings us to the page and having the courage to write, no matter the obstacle.

Top 200,000!

Hey! Lost Edens is officially ranked #183,433 on the Amazon sellers list. Considering the average books published per year in the United States hovers around 200,000 I'm not dead last! This is fantastic!

Actually, this ranking looks an awful lot like my ranking at road races. If only I could see the breakdown for how Lost Edens ranks with books of it's own genre; my rank as a runner always goes up when compared to women in my age range so maybe the book rank would go up if it's with it's fellow "true stories."

I found a terrific group of book bloggers who started the Indie Lit Awards. I can't nominate myself, much like I am for every other possible award, but you as a reader sure can. Nominations are open and run through December 31. Jump on over and nominate Lost Edens. It's in the Biography/Memoir category so maybe my ranking will beat my Amazon ranking. Fingers crossed. On your marks...

Update: Difference a day makes! Now Lost Edens is officially #64,741. Aiming for top 50,000.

Hard(top) Goodbyes

I just got in from cleaning out my jeep because I'm selling it back to the dealer tomorrow morning after almost 5 years together. There honestly wasn't much to clean out. It's a Jeep. Like my friend, Tobias, said: a Jeep is like analog in a digital world. It's basic. I never locked the doors, I understood what I saw under the hood, I knew exactly what it could do in second, third, fourth, fifth gears.

I left one thing sitting on the dashboard, though, that I just can't bring myself to remove yet because I'm not sure what I'll do with it: a perfect (and I mean perfect) flat, round skipping stone. It's been sitting in the little tray on the dashboard for maybe a year.

There are a lot of things I love but am absolutely no good at: flying, golf, cooking, and skipping stones to name a few. I think I've been holding on to The Perfect Skipping Stone because as long as I haven't tried skipping it across the clear, calm surface of the lake then it stays the perfect skipping stone. What if I take it out there and it plops right in, not a skip to be seen?

I'm not sure where the greater tragedy is: finding the perfect stone and never even trying to see what it can do, or finding the perfect stone, trying, and failing anyway.

Or, even greater tragedy: selling a perfectly good Jeep just before a Minnesota winter. I suppose the only thing you can do is throw when it's time to throw, sell when it's time to sell, and maybe not worry so much about the outcome. Hm. Maybe the trick in it all is knowing when it's time?

Courage

My sister sent this along, and I think it's sweet. I still feel like editing, though, so it says "to tell who you were..." but perhaps I can't have those kinds of liberties--with words or with life.

"The original definition of courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart." ― Brené Brown