Book sales have been terrible so far this month. Maybe it’s a February thing, but it’s a bit discouraging.

On the positive side, the Locus Recommended Reading list came out on the first of the month and includes The Last Good Man and my short story “The Martian Obelisk.” Unfortunately this hasn’t helped book sales! But you can see the whole list here.

Oh, and you — yes, you — can vote for the Locus awards! You don’t have to be a subscriber. Anyone can vote. Here’s the voting link. Go vote for whatever you feel is worthy.

More good news: “The Martian Obelisk” (much to my delighted surprise) will appear in FIVE best-of-the-year anthologies. So that’s kind of cool. If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so online right here at Tor.com. Oh and if you are eligible to vote for the Hugo or Nebula awards, “The Martian Obelisk” is eligible in the short story category. Just sayin’.

Why do awards matter? I wrote a whole post on that at one point. It’s here if you want to read it, but basically, awards help to sell books. Some writers sell a lot of books regardless of awards, but some of us don’t. And selling books is one of those KEY factors that helps writers stay in business. So hey, we list our eligible work and ask readers to consider it. That’s about it.

Posted on: Wednesday, February 7th, 2018 at 5:16 pm
Categories: Writing Life.