Yet Another Chart Surprise

It’s exactly one week since The Chocolate Egg Murders, the seventh STAC Mystery, was released, and at six o’clock this it had moved into the top 1,000 books overall, and is sitting at number 854 as I write.

That may not sound very impressive, but consider it this way. Amazon Kindle UK lists about 1,700,000 (one million seven hundred thousand) ebooks. My little whodunit is in the top 0.05% of that pile.

We’re not just talking whodunits, we’re talking everything: romance, historical, contemporary, horror, sci-fi, YA, nonfiction… the lot.

Pleased? Ever so slightly.

It set the seal on what was a topsy-turvy day for me yesterday. I’ve been unwell for some weeks, and investigations showed nothing. My blood sugar is under control, the weather has been playing the merry hell with my arthritis, but I’ve kept indoors and warm for much of the time, and I’ve had no infections to speak of, so the lethargy, lack of energy and general fatigue remained as big a mystery as The Chocolate Egg Murders.

Then yesterday afternoon, a set of blood results came through and fingered the culprit. Vitamin and mineral deficiency; specifically, folic acid and iron. Not difficult to put right, and I’m now on ‘the cure’.

That perked me up and to put a little jam on it, The Chocolate Egg Murders moved up to number 8 in the Mystery/British Detectives top 100.

This morning, getting out of bed, with snow falling outside yet again, it looked as if the jam might be swept away, but no. Instead, I got an extra helping of cream with the Chocolate Egg’s progress

British Detectives top 100: number 7

Overall chart: number 854

Joe was interviewed on Cathie Dunn’s Blog yesterday, but it was before all this, so he never commented. I’ve now heard a rumour that he’s so chuffed, he’s knocking 20% off the price of a sausage butty at the Lazy Luncheonette, but I find that hard to believe.

The STAC Mysteries are proving surprisingly popular. As part of the Crooked Cat Sale, most are priced at  77p. A Murder for Christmas stood second best at number 21 in the mystery/British Detectives chart last night, and this morning, the second highest placed is Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend. All seven titles are in the top 50 of that chart.

It’s gratifying, but it also means that Joe, Sheila, Brenda and Co are going to be taking up more and more of my time. Joe’s already told me what’s happening at Christmas.

I think it must be the snow on the ground that prompted him to think about it.

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The Chocolate Egg Murders is available for download from:

Amazon (Kindle)

Smashwords (All formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from:

Amazon