Darius Jones's Blog: A Writer Begins - Posts Tagged "launch"

Well, here goes nothing.

My first novel has just been published. It's on the Amazon Kindle store here.

It's also on Goodreads: The Library of Lost Books

Please take the time to leave a review. And a big thank you to all of you who have already got it and are reading it.

,D

I provide the FAQs below to answer some of the most common questions I have heard about the novel I’ve just published, The Library of Lost Books, now available exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle store.

I don’t have a Kindle, can I still buy it?

Yes, all you have to do is download the Kindle app. It works with any PC, Mac, iPad, or any other device on the planet.

I have a Nook. Can I buy it on Barnes & Noble?

Not yet. I have decided to enroll the book in Amazon’s KDP for promotional purposes. In doing so, you agree not to publish the work anywhere else online for 3 months. When this period is over, I will post the book to the Nook store.

How and where can I leave a review?

You can leave a review on the Amazon page or on Goodreads.

How do you feel about people leaving reviews?

Great. Right now, a review is more important than even buying the book. Reviews will pique people’s interest and drive more readers to the book. Also, positive or negative, a review is the only way—besides practice—one can improve as a writer.

Do you plan to write more stuff?

I already have. Right now, I’m working on a series of short stories. I have already finished one and am shopping it around to magazines. I will post any major breakthroughs or defeats here.

This looks fun. Can I publish my own novel online?

Yes. E-publishing is the biggest breakthrough in publishing in a long time. It will make publishing a much more transparent, democratic process. The only challenge is that the author must be editor, publisher and agent rolled into one. I still have not mastered these arts.

That being said, you retain complete creative control and work to your own deadlines. But the greatest challenge is in creating a compelling manuscript that is polished. It’s the same old standard, but now with much less interaction from publishing industry middlemen. Which is both good and bad.

Would you recommend publishing your first novel online?

It depends. In my case, yes. On the other hand, if you were a more established writer and had built up a portfolio of short stories or had done time in a prominent workshop or creative writing program, you might want to shop around the manuscript to publishing houses first. They would be much more open to considering a manuscript from someone with such a background. In my case, I knew I didn’t have those things and my chances of getting published via the normal route were slim. I opted to write what I liked, skip the whole novel submittal process and do it myself.

I’m very happy with the result.

So, now that you’re a writer, you must be rich. How much in royalties have you made?

$0.

Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t seen a single royalty check yet. You must have a minimum in sales of $10 before Amazon or Barnes and Noble sends you a check. You get between 35-40% royalties on each sale. I sold about 15 copies of my first story, the Truck Stop, which I choose to sell at $0.99. You can do the math, but it doesn’t add up to $10. Especially, when you divide it between two publishing houses.

But, as has often been said, good writing is its own reward.

,Darius

Well, so much for Amazon KDP Select being a waste of time.

I was skeptical of the program which lets you promote your book for free for five days if you commit to sell it exclusively through Amazon (at least in digital format). So far, it’s turned out to be a good deal.

My new novel, The Library of Lost Books, was downloaded by 423 people in one day last week during a special KDP promotion on Amazon. Here’s how it broke down across their stores:

US 358 downloads
United Kingdom 51 downloads
Germany 12 downloads
France 2 downloads

Of course, the book was FREE, but I still can’t believe it. In fact, for about an hour or so in the afternoon, it was in the Top 100 in the Amazon Kindle “Free” store in both genres I submitted it under: Literary Fiction and Fantasy Fiction.

Crazy. I was hoping to get the novel to 50 people total, over the book’s launch and lifetime. Now, it’s closer to 500. It peaked at 1,212 in the Kindle Free store which doesn’t sound impressive, until you realize that the store has a million titles. We’re talking almost the top one-tenth of one percent, if I’m doing the math right (and as a writer, I’m usually not). Needless to say it was great seeing my book up there with War and Peace, even if it was only for a day.

Now, the key is getting all you busy people out there to write reviews. I want to make this as easy as possible. You can post yours on the Amazon Kindle page for the book or here on Goodreads. A review doesn't have to be long, just a star rating and a few words.

Also, don’t forget to “Friend” or “Fan” me on Goodreads or Facebook.

And thanks to all of you out there that were brave enough to click on a book from an independent author you’ve never heard of before and give him a shot. I can’t thank all of you have bought or downloaded my book enough. You really made my day.

Keep Spreading the Word,

,Darius

PS I’ll give the last word to the musicians. Why is it that they’re so often better at capturing emotions than us writers?

Velvet Morning by the Verve. Live at Wigan, 1998.

All,

My new novel, The Library of Lost Books, is free this weekend—-August 4 and 5—-on the Amazon Kindle store.

Enjoy and please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Darius Jones

Well, in keeping with the promise of this blog to include both the trials and triumphs, here’s the breakdown of the stats from my Amazon KDP Select giveaway this weekend.

US 271 downloads
United Kingdom 39 downloads
Germany 14 downloads
Total 324 downloads

At first, I was a bit disappointed. I had about over 400 downloads in one day during my first giveaway on July 18. So, I was hoping to get about 400-800 downloads for the 2-days weekend giveaway. But, in retrospect, I think that was asking too much. I think the earlier adopter/downloaders have already seen the book, so it has lost a bit of its “wow factor.” And it was a nice summer weekend and the Olympics were on. So, maybe not the best timing.

One thing that doesn’t fit with this theory is that Germany actually had more downloads than previously. Maybe vegging out and watching the Olympics isn’t as popular in Germany?

Anyway, finishing the math for all 3 KDP Giveaway days, we get:

Aug. 4 -5 Total 324 downloads
July 18 Total 423 downloads
Sales to Date 27 copies
Grand Total 774

The upshot of all this is that I feel confident enough to admit that my goal since my first KDP giveaway on The Library of Lost Books has been to get 1,000 downloads and 29 sales for the book, over the book’s entire lifetime. (If you sell your book at .99 cents, 29 sales is the magic number you need to get a $10 royalty check. Amazon won't send you a check until you hit the $10 mark). And that’s what I told myself all weekend long: “Don’t forget your original goal.”

It’s still my goal and I hope to reach it soon. With a little luck I’ll get there before my KDP 3-month run is up on Oct. 10. I will keep you all posted.

Thanks to all of you for buying/downloading. Keeping checking the blog for future giveaways and news and...

Keep Spreading the Word,

Darius

PS Here’s your musical treat.



This was playing on my Pandora station as I periodically (limited to once every 4 hours) checked my stats on the Amazon Kindle store this weekend.

Well, I did it. I became, in some small way, a professional writer.

I’ve now exceeded my goal of selling 29 copies of my first novel, The Library of Lost Books. That was the magic number I had to reach to get $10 in royalties (29 books x $0.99 list price x 35% royalty = $10.05) and get my first royalty check from Amazon. For those of you who are following this blog for the numbers, I’ve sold 40 copies of Library so far. This does NOT include: books returned for a refund, books downloaded during free giveaways or borrows. Those 40 are all cash sales.

But that’s only half the goal. My other, bigger goal is to get the book into the hands of 1,000 readers. I’m close to this as well, I think I’m at about 790 right now. These 1,000 readers will include people who buy the book, borrow the book in Amazon's Lending Library and those who download it during a free giveaway. I’m hoping to reach this bigger goal by Oct. 10 my last day for Library on KDP Select. Again, I’ll keep you posted.

In honor of this milestone, I’d like to highlight the source of the title for today’s post: a short story by Isaac Babel.



The story, “My First Fee,” begins with one of my favorite first lines.

To be in Tiflis in spring, to be twenty years old, and not to be loved—is a terrible thing.

Of course, lucky Isaac’s “first fee” was a bit different than mine, being non-monetary compensation, and perhaps sweeter. But as for me, I’ll just take the cash.

Well that about wraps up today’s post, I’ve got to do some real writing today. Thanks to all my friends and fans for buying a copy and, as always…

Keep Spreading the Word,

Darius


Postscript. My first fee will take Amazon some 3 months to deliver (60 days after the calendar month in which the royalties are accrued). Strangely, in this day of automated and instant everything, authors still have to wait a long time for their checks to arrive.

In my book, The Library of Lost Books, I imagined a library where all the great lost books re-emerged to be looked over by a select group of librarians. When the idea first hit me it got me to thinking: what are the greatest lost books of all time? Of those tomes that went missing, those that were destroyed by fire, water or time—which ones would we most want to have back?

Of course, everyone would have their own list. The Smithsonian has compiled its own list here which has some pretty compelling choices.

In response, here’s the first part of my top 10 list (with #1 being the book I most wish we still had) of lost books. I make a note of those books which make a cameo appearance in The Library of Lost Books.

10. The Roman Sibylline Books.

Some might place this as number one. It is, of course, an almost wholly legendary topic, but probably contains a shred of historic truth.

The Sibylline Books were nine  books of the Cumaean Sibyl, the high priestess resident at the Greek colony of Cumae, near modern Naples, Italy. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, wished to purchase the books from the sibyl and make them his own. But he equivocated, thinking the price too high. No neophyte to tough bargaining, the sibyl burnt three of the books in the presence of the king. She once more asked for the fee. Lucius refused again, arguing he would not pay the original price for only six books. The sibyl burnt away three more of the books without batting an eye. She asked for the original fee again. Lucius relented, paid the fee and saved the last three books.

The remaining books were moved to the Temple of Jupiter, the Magnificent in Rome and as late as 363 AD (after Christianity had emerged) the emperor Julian the Apostate was consulted them in order to determine whether marching against the restive Persian Empire would be auspicious and end in glory. The books said yes, supporting the emperor’s invasion, but it led to his untimely death. Shortly after that, the Roman Empire entered a period of terminal decline, paganism decayed and the remaining three books were lost and the temple was abandoned to time.

Some might ask why I’m rating the Sibylline Books so low. The reason is that I feel they would contain a good amount of stock recitation and gibberish. I feel it might tell us a bit about Etruscan paganism, but would contain little of historical or cultural value. It simply would not be a good read.

The Sibylline Books do not appear in my book, The Library of Lost Books. However, the character of Hypatia in the book is a pastiche of the sibyl and the historical Hypatia. I wanted a character that was a powerful witch with a literary bent. A Sibylline Hypatia fit the bill.

9. The French Revolution: A History. Part one, draft one. Thomas Carlyle.

I include this book not so much for what a loss it was or how much I would have liked to read it, but to the story of how the book was lost.

As a writer you end up collecting quite a few manuscripts from friends asking for a read and critique. I’m always careful to handle the manuscripts with care and return them to the writer friend in one piece. But that’s not what happened when Thomas Carlyle gave his good friend, John Stuart Mill, THE ONLY COPY of his masterpiece, The French Revolution: A History.

Apparently, John wasn’t home when the book arrived. Instead his capable maid intercepted the manuscript, mistook it for trash and burned it.

I imagine after a vigorous interrogation of the maid and a frantic search of the trash and the fireplace, John decided to go over to his friend Thomas’s house to have a chat. I would have to guess  it went something like this. (For the tone of the dialogue, see this scene from Young Frankenstein).

JOHN: Ah, Tom! There you are!

THOMAS: Well, it is my house. Whom do you expect to meet?"

J: Quite right. Anyway…How have you been?

T: Good…Did you get a chance to read my book yet?

J: [in mock cluelessness:] The book?

T: Yes, the one I sent. On the French Revolution?

J: Oh, yes! That book.

T: Well? Did you read it?

J: Read it? Well…

T: What?

J: I…

T: What is it?…Is it bad?

J: No, no. I’m sure it’s excellent. It’s just...

T: [with growing dread:] What…?

[Cut to a scene of a provincial English countryside with a small cottage in the distance. We hear a man’s scream roll across the countryside from the cottage. We return to an interior shot of the cottage:]

JOHN [concerned:] I’m sorry, Tom.

THOMAS [incredulously:] Sorry!? Sorry!? You knew it was the only copy. It was my masterpiece!

[JOHN raises his hands and shrugs pathetically.]

…or something like that. Carlyle went on to write the second and third parts before writing part 1 from memory. But it just goes to show you: Always back up your work!

8. Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

 

Here’s one for all you Old Testament buffs out there. I recently read the Book of Kings,  and despite some thick prose it was a great read. It’s got battles, slave girls, pagan priests, massacres, bear attacks, chariots of fire in the sky. It’s got Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel. What more could you ask for?

But one annoying fact kept getting me. Just as you were getting some good, juicy details about one of the Israelite kings and how he screwed up, you get something like this:

'What else is there to say of such things? For behold, is it not told in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

On almost every page just as things really start getting good, up comes that phrase again:
For behold, is it not told in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

Soon, I started to cry out each time I came to the phrase.

“No! No, it is not told!”

And you guessed it, the Chronicles of both kingdoms are lost. It’s not quite clear how they disappeared, at least from the research I’ve done, though I’m guessing this had something to do with it. I’d like to know if any of you out there in Internet-land knows.

At any rate, it would be nice to have the rich historical detail in those Chronicles back.

7. The Arzhang

 

This is probably the most obscure one on my list. Even the Wikipedia article on it is sparse. It’s also the only picture book on the list.

But it was illustrated by the prophet Mani, founder of a Gnostic sect, who was also a renowned painter. Apparently, it was also written by him. I find the Manicheans fascinating with their blend of Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Christian teachings. It would have been nice to have one more primary sources for this obscure religion.  

But the greatest loss here is the paintings of Mani himself and it would be intriguing to see how Mani’s style differed and influenced later medieval Persian miniature painting.  

6. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, draft 1. T.E. Lawrence.

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This is not necessarily a great loss, but like number 9 above is more famous for the way it was lost rather than its contents.

It appears Lawrence lost the manuscript when he misplaced his briefcase while changing trains at Reading railway station. Despite a national book-hunt, the briefcase was never found. Luckily, the determined Lawrence was able to write most of the book from memory! Quite a feat when you consider it was supposed to be 250,000 words (a very long novel). So, in the end, I’d like to think that we still have most of the book, that’s why this one didn’t quite crack my top 5.

In The Library of Lost Books, Darius finds The Seven Pillars, draft 1. It is the second book he opens in the library after opening The Poor Man and the Lady by Thomas Hardy. Reading station is also a scene in the book which is used to explain how misplaced (as opposed to destroyed) books make their way to the Library.  

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Those are the first five of my greatest lost books. After a vacation I will return, to finish off the list with my top 5 lost books of all time.

…Vacation? Did someone say, “vacation”? That’s right. I’m taking the rest of September off. I’ve earned it. I’ll return to writing and this blog in October. See you then. Thanks for a great launch of “Library.”

,Darius

Well, all good things must end. I’m back from vacation and it’s time to get back to work. As promised  just before I left, this post will finish off my list of the greatest lost books of all time.

As I explained earlier, in The Library of Lost Books, I imagined a library where all the great lost books re-emerge to be looked over by a select group of librarians. When the idea first hit me it got me to thinking: what are the greatest lost books of all time? Of those tomes that went missing, those that were destroyed—which ones would we most want back?

My choice for the greatest lost books  number 10 through 6 can be found in an earlier post. Below are my selections for 5 through to number 1.

5. Алтан Дэвтэр. The Altan Debter or “Golden Book.”

Here’s one I really would like to read, the Altan Debter. It’s supposedly similar to The Secret History of the Mongols, a history of the reign of Genghis khan and his son, Ogodei. The Secret History is supposed to be a great read (at least the abridged version), but I’ve never read it. It’s a sort of family history of Genghis and his compatriots that relates their years  of struggle and eventual triumph. Apparently, some scholars think the Altan Debter was similar but according to one prominent Mongol scholar (David Morgan who wrote a great history of the Mongol empire), that simply isn’t so and it might have included quite a bit of unique material.

 

It appears that the Mongols had the unfortunate habit of writing things down but keeping only a few secret copies. It might have certain advantages (centralizing power with the khan’s inner circle), but it’s not the greatest method for preserving texts. Somewhat the same  fate befell the Yassa and, almost, The Secret History itself. It seems that a similar fate was  in store for the Altan Debter.

It’s  a pity, I would have loved to see what was in it.

4. De Vita Celebra Meretricum. The Lives of Famous Whores. Suetonius.

Have you ever read The Lives of the Twelve Caesars? I you haven’t, you should. It’s fun. 

Twelve Caesars demonstrates that politics hasn’t changed much in over 2,000 years. It’s a salacious romp through the misdeeds and vices of twelve Roman emperors. There are tales of murder, debauchery, cruelty and cupidity that are hard to match in anything I’ve ever read. There is Caligula appointing his horse as a consul, Nero murdering his mother, and Vespasian instituting a urine tax.

With its lively pacing and attention to detail, 12 Caesars is a classic. And it would have been nice to see what Suetonius had to say about “famous whores.” First, I would wonder who would make it on the list. I suspect there might have been a few names of women who practiced the world’s oldest profession, but knowing Suetonius, I suspect he would not dwell on these subjects too much. I think he might widen the definition of “famous whores” to include many other personages of questionable sexual ethics (from the male, old Roman point of view). I’m sure there would be tales and incidents implicating or insinuating involvement by prominent members of emperors’ inner circles and other famous incidents from mythology and history.

But most of all, I really would have enjoyed sitting down and enjoying another book full of colorful anecdotes and characters that only Suetonius could deliver. It’s too bad it’s not around.

3. Στις Φύση. On Nature by Heraclitus (Ηράκλειτος)

One of the first things that got me thinking deeper about how to flesh out the kernel of the idea for The Library of Lost Books, were the fragments of Heraclitus.

By turns dark and light, mysterious and crystalline, the fragments are a true classic of philosophy and history. Plato and Aristotle have their place, but there is something special about Heraclitus. Unlike the other two, Heraclitus with his emphasis on change, equilibrium derived from opposing forces and illogicality seems to foreshadow Newton’s  laws of motion, evolution, quantum mechanics and Gödel's Uncertainty Principle. It’s as if his ideas are more at home in the modern world than Plato and Aristotle (both popular in the Middle Ages). His emphasis on fire particularly struck me:

That which always was,
and is, and will be everlasting fire
the same for all, the cosmos,
made neither by god nor man,
replenishes in measure
as it burns away.

[as translated by Bruce Haxton.]

But then again, perhaps his ideas are familiar because they are so old, so embedded in our subconscious. He clearly was influenced by Zoroaster and there are strange analogies to Lao Tzu who was alive and about the same time, though it’s hard to imagine Chinese ideas  penetrating to Asia Minor at that date (or vice versa).

Heraclitus was so wedged into my thinking in the early stages of ideation for this book, that he became an important character in it. But as a character, I hobbled him by allowing him only to speak in the fragments of his which we still possess. When one of the fragments fit, Heraclitus would show up and mouth the appropriate quote. It seemed a fitting treatment for a book focused on lost works, on what went left unsaid and what could have been.

In fact, in one of the final scenes in “Library,” Darius (the protagonist) happens upon Heraclitus weeping and reading his masterpiece, On Nature. This fits with his depiction in art as the “weeping philosopher.” But somehow that moniker never sat well with me. There is something numinous about his sayings, but there is also spontaneity, mirth, satire and childishness. For me, the Fragments seem to come from a shrewd, lively, worldly man, not a miserable observer. In the end, I turned Heraclitus, the  character, into a trouble-maker, a man of action although he remains a bit of an obscurantist (not in the philosophical usage of the term). I like to think that’s faithful to who the historical Heraclitus was. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.

2. Мёртвые души, часть 2. Dead Souls, Volume II. Nikolai Gogol.

Gogol’s continuation of his astounding masterpiece, Dead Souls, might have been a paragon of the art of literature, but we’ll never know. The first volume is one of my favorite books of all time and my favorite book ever about a long-standing topic of interest: Russia. It’s part comedy and part drama, with elements of realism and romanticism. It’s entertaining and profound. And it contains one of the most famous quote about Russia in literature:

Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!... And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your mane?Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me.

The book was planned to be the first of a trilogy. What many people don’t know is that Gogol completed part two. So, what happened to it? Well, I’ll let Wikipedia take over here, but it’s generally consistent with what I’ve read in other sources:

More importantly, he intensified his relationship with a starets or spiritual elder, Matvey Konstantinovsky, whom he had known for several years. Konstantinovsky seems to have strengthened in Gogol the fear of perdition by insisting on the sinfulness of all his imaginative work. His health was undermined by exaggerated ascetic practices and he fell into a state of deep depression. On the night of 24 February 1852, he burned some of his manuscripts, which contained most of the second part of Dead Souls. He explained this as a mistake, a practical joke played on him by the Devil. Soon thereafter, he took to bed, refused all food, and died in great pain nine days later.

There it is. A masterpiece destroyed not by a raging mob or an invading horde, but by its own creator.It’s something I would have absolutely loved to read and it would have been great, judged by Gogol’s other work and the first volume.

I knew this book had to appear in my “Library.” It does early on, when Darius discovers it on the shelf. But I also wanted to give it a bit bigger play so…I took a  phrase from Bulgakov (an admirer of Gogol): “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” and  placed it above the fireplace in the Library. I believe this was Bulgakov’s direct reference to Gogol destroying his work, although it appears in a different context in The Master and  Margarita. In the end this phrase became a sort of ironic joke in my work because in that world (the world of the Library) manuscripts, in fact, DO NOT burn. They are simply transformed from a burning book in our world into a new book inside the Library. It was a nice way of tying together Gogol, Bulgakov and Heraclitus in one big knot.

1. The Mayan Codices.
The Mayan codices are number one because it represents not a lost masterpiece, no  matter how great, of a single author, but the lost soul of an entire culture—the Mayans.

Mayan things come up again and again in “Library.” The Mayan codex is the first codex room (a section of the library gathered around a specific culture) that Darius enters. The date 1562 is also inscribed (in a Mayan date) on a tower of black obsidian as one of the great days of destruction of books. It’s corresponds to the destruction of all the great, priceless Mayan codices by bishop Landa in the Yucatan. Here’s what he had to say about the fire:

"We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they [the Maya] regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

Imagine having all that back, having all that part of our universe again. Imagine how much we would learn about the ancient Maya and their culture, their every day life. And the great tales from their mythology. Think how grateful today’s Maya would be to have back that part of their culture. It’s a truly tragic loss and one group of works I wish we still had.

In the end, Landa inadvertently led to the decipherment of ancient Mayan, by leaving a key matching Mayan glyphs with Spanish letters. It’s one of those great ironies of history.

* * *

Those are my great lost books, but I could add so many more. Ovid’s Medea (this only missed my list by a hair, I love me some Ovid, it would  have been #11 on the list and only didn’t make the cut because we have the legend of Medea in many other writers, including Ovid himself). Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor Won (This didn’t make it because we have Love Labor Lost and because, truth be told, I’m not a big fan of Shakespeare). Honorable mention goes to the Yongle encyclopedia and Aeschylus’s and Sophocles’ lost plays. Of course, you also have to realize some cultural bias on my part. I’m from the U.S., so many of my lost books are weighted toward writers from the Western canon. There are many great non-European books that could have made the list too.  

And it leaves me wondering…What would your lost books be? Please let me know in the comment section.

Another post, this one mercifully shorter than the last. My new novel, The Library of Lost Books, is now on Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

And it’s still only 99 cents.

Please tell your friends, drop by and leave a review. If you can’t find it in their search, the B&N ID is 2940015488357.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Darius Jones

It’s been three months since I launched my novel, The Library of Lost Books, on Kindle. So, how has it done? Pretty good, I think, to judge by the numbers. I want to  present them here so that other writers out there can get some idea of what to expect when they e-publish their debut novel.

Here’s a little background to put this all in context. Before Library I had not published anything, anywhere except for one short story (The Truck Stop) which I published in December of last year (2011) on Kindle and Nook. I sold about 20 copies of that story at the time, mostly to friends.

I released “Library” only on Amazon Kindle’s KDP Select program and these are the promotional tools I used:

- A group email to friends.
- Simple pop-ups ads on Goodreads. My budget was  small, much less than $100 per month.
- 1 author event. A Q and A session on the Readers and Writers group at Goodreads. (Thanks, A.F.!).

That being said, these are the results of my first three months for Library. Total books Sold, Borrowed and Given-away are over 1,000. I was very happy with that!

Sold...................................94
Giveaways....................1059
Borrows.............................9
Grand Total..................1162

[If anyone wants me to verify these numbers, I will send along the Excel files from Amazon.]

This all brings us to one thing…make that two…Garth Brooks and honky-tonks.

Now, I know that  not everyone out there likes country music, but there is something about a guy that can pack Central Park and get “close to a million” New Yorkers to sing a country song along with him. Anyway, he had this to say about his “honky-tonk” years before he started packing stadiums.

"For me, there's something more important than the numbers," he stresses, "and that's the level of passion with which people follow you. If there's going to be a fight breaking out at the Thanksgiving table about what was the best concert anybody ever went to, you want your name mentioned. That's what you want, and that's the most important thing to me—how passionate people are about who'll they believe and follow.”

Well put, Garth. (Have you ever considered writing, by the way?). In that spirit, I have to say that the most amazing things that have happened so far are the reviews I’ve received from total strangers. Here’s a review from Amazon that really blew me away.

I love this book, October 9, 2012

By "Magnus"

This review is from: The Library of Lost Books (Kindle Edition)

“I don't want to wait until I finish it to write this review, and I certainly don't want to rush through it. I grabbed this while it was free, but it's well worth the price otherwise. It's an amazing read, and one that will enchant anyone who's ever found they've lost an hour or two browsing in the stacks of a library, as well as anyone who loves books and reading.

Every page has phrases and sentences that I want to read out loud. There's just so much to this book: philosophy, history, adventure. This book is one of hundreds waiting for me on my Kindle Fire, but the gentleman on the cover kept catching my eye, and I decided to start it the other day. I'm glad I did.”

They haven’t all been that way, but that was the first really positive one that came through. And it’s just the sort of thing that can kick a writer in the ass, motivate him and get him to keep pouring all he’s got into his writing. So thanks, Magnus, and thanks to all of you who bought it, downloaded it and borrowed it. In a strange way, I couldn’t have done it without you.