The Grim Toll

Today is the official release date for Dead of Veridon. It's my book day, hooray. Okay? Enough celebration? Let's look at some tacks, made up of brass.

Dead of Veridon is the second book in this series. Heart of Veridon, as we all know, didn't do brilliantly out of the gate. There are a variety of reasons for it, but the simple fact is that the book shipped to every B&N and Borders in the US, and most of those got returned. That creates a precedent. Regardless of the reasons for the book not doing well, it creates a pattern that gets lodged into the algorithms of the industry, and there are repercussions.

In this case, it means that the second book just doesn't get the same distribution. In Chicagoland, precisely one B&N is carrying the book. Only five Borders have it, which is maybe a third of the remaining storefronts. My parents have precisely one location they can buy the book in all of Western NC. So it's not a pretty picture.

This is unsurprising. Part of the problem I had when writing the book was simply the fact that I didn't see a path whereby this novel got to much of an audience. It's disappointing to put so much effort into a work and then see it falter, but that's just the nature of this industry. Which gets us back to the algorithms.

I consider it likely that this will be the last "Tim Akers" book. That's particularly difficult, but I've achieved a track record of imperfect sales and disappointing returns. I can't undo that. The thing I'm working on now may well come out under a pen name. It's a disappointing result, but it's where I am. So. Buy the book, but I'm going to start practicing a new signature.

Failing to Fear

This is a cheater post, because all I'm going to do is point you to another blog. That of John Allison, the brilliant artist behind ScaryGoRound, Bad Machinery and Giant Days. He is my national favorite. And it's a cheater post two ways, because all John is going to do is point you to a video by a hoary old gentleman who has some things to say about failure.

I couldn't agree more.