Just a few more days until publication!

To review for those new to my blog, I’m publicly tracking preorders on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man. The novel has already earned a Publishers Weekly starred review, and several glowing endorsements from other writers. But it’s a crowded marketplace…

My goal was a modest 500 preorders before the June 20 publication date. And you know what? I made it! The print orders did it. There were a total of 153 as of this morning — VERY small potatoes in the grand scheme of things — but enough to let me reach my goal. Thank you to everyone who preordered a copy, whether ebook or print!

So what does this mean in dollar terms? After all, I need to contribute something to the family income…

The ebook is priced at $7.99. For most copies sold, I earn 70% of the list price less a few pennies, so let’s say $5.55 per copy. That’s a nice cut, much better than I’d get in traditional publishing. If all preorders go through, I’m looking to net around $2,175 from the ebooks.

By contrast, print — specifically print-on-demand — is expensive. So despite the $18 cover price, I’ll be netting only about $2 a copy for the preordered print books.

Adding estimated income from ebook and print preorders gives me a total of $2,415, which I won’t see until two or three months after publication. Not exactly high finance, eh? But it’s a start.

I’ll write more on income versus expenses in another post.

Find all related posts here.

Find preorder links and info here.

To review for those new to my blog, I’m publicly tracking preorders on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man. The novel has already earned a Publishers Weekly starred review, and several glowing endorsements from other writers. But it’s a crowded marketplace…

My goal is a modest 500 preorders before the June 20 publication date — only eleven days away! This is the first week print preorders have shown up. Only 36 so far, but it’s a start. Thank you to everyone who ordered. This number has been included in the total below.

Details:
++ The 525 newsletter subscribers are a separate list, newly signed up via a recent promotion. It should be assumed that most are unfamiliar with my work.

Find all related posts here.

Find preorder links and info here.

I’m publicly tracking preorders on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man. The novel has already earned a Publishers Weekly starred review, and several glowing endorsements from other writers. But how is it doing in a crowded marketplace? Not so great.

My goal is a modest 500 preorders before the June 20 publication date. During this past week I passed the halfway mark, and it’s possible the numbers are a little better than what I can show here. More on that below. First, the current statistics:

++ The 525 newsletter subscribers are a separate list, newly signed up via a recent promotion. It should be assumed that most are unfamiliar with my work.

I can’t see preorders at iBooks, and I didn’t ask my distributor for an updated count, but it’s unlikely to have changed much from the five copies reported last week.

The print edition is available to preorder and I know that at least two books have been ordered, but those numbers have not shown up in any report, so I’m going to assume I won’t see print numbers until the books actually ship. That means print is a big mystery, and the numbers above reflect only ebook sales.

By the way, both Barnes & Noble and Amazon are offering the print edition at a 23% discount as of this writing.

Find all related posts here.

Find preorder links and info here.

It’s June 1st! The Last Good Man publishes later this month — and it’s already showing up on some lists of summer books.

Barnes & Noble has included it in their “NOOK Press Presents” collection for June and July.

The Verge has included it in a list of thirty-nine science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels coming out in June.

Kirkus has listed it among a dozen science fiction and fantasy titles to “Kickstart Your Summer Reading.”

Both the ebook and print editions are available for preorder. Find links and more information here.

I’m publicly tracking preorders on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man. The novel has already earned a Publishers Weekly starred review, and several glowing endorsements from other writers. But how is it doing in a crowded marketplace? Well, it’s not setting any records…

My goal is a modest 500 preorders before the June 20 publication date. Right now I’m closing in on the halfway mark. Here are the current statistics:

I can’t see preorders at iBooks, but I had my distributor check and they reported five copies sold there as of last Monday.

The print edition became available to preorder during the past week. It’s listed at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon. (BN has a 23% discount as of this writing.) But I haven’t seen any record of print preorders yet. It’s possible I won’t see these until they ship and the purchaser is billed. At this point, I just don’t know.

Find all related posts here.

Find preorder links and info here.

Barnes & Noble
A new review of The Last Good Man has gone up at the Barnes & Noble SFF blog. Read it here.

And, perhaps not by coincidence, Barnes & Noble is offering a 23% discount on preorders of the print edition. I have no idea how long this discount will last, but here’s the link.

Giveaways
On Twitter, I’m doing a giveaway of The Last Good Man. All you need to do to enter is retweet this tweet — and by doing so you’re helping me get the word out to potential new readers! So if you’re on Twitter, I’d really appreciate some more RTs:

I have an early copy of THE LAST GOOD MAN to give away! RT this by 5/28 for a chance to win it. PW starred review. #nearfuture #SciFi #milSF pic.twitter.com/dRMMZTsDqn

— Linda Nagata (@LindaNagata) May 18, 2017

Don’t forget, there is also an ongoing Goodreads Giveaway.

New Arrivals
Two new arrivals have shown up recently in my mailbox. Here, Xena is keeping an eye on the Polish edition of The Trials, translated by Mirosław P. Jabłoński, and published by Rebis:

Here are print copies of Cosmic Powers, a short story collection that includes my contribution “Diamond and the World Breaker.” Cosmic Powers is available in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions:

I’m publicly tracking preorders on my forthcoming novel The Last Good Man. The novel has already earned a Publishers Weekly starred review, and several glowing endorsements from other writers. But how is it doing in the marketplace? Not all that well, honestly.

My goal is 500 preorders. Here are the current statistics:

(?) Over the weekend and early in the week pre-orders were moving along slowly but steadily. My guess as to why is that Amazon may have begun including the title in their daily emails to potentially interested customers. But the pace slowed considerably after Tuesday.

**Around 350 subscribers have been long-time subscribers. The others are mostly new to my work, having signed on during recent promotional events. Only 39% of emails sent track as having been opened.

Find all related posts here.

Find preorder links and info here.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

My two children are adults now, but I’ve always loved being a mom and still do. Perhaps as a consequence, moms have often been prominent in my fiction.

My children were quite young when I wrote my first novel, The Bohr Maker. In that story, Phousita, one of two main protagonists, is not technically a mother but she’s a mother-figure for many. In Tech-Heaven the solo protagonist is a widowed mother with a close relationship to her own mother, her mother-in-law, and her daughters. Deception Well is a bit short on mothers, but Vast makes up for it, I think. Limit of Vision doesn’t directly explore motherhood, but in Memory one of the driving emotional themes is the strong relationship between the protagonist, Jubilee, and her mother. The Red trilogy is lacking in motherhood — it’s Dad who gets the focus here. But in The Last Good Man motherhood returns as a powerful emotional force behind a fast-paced plot.

True Brighton is the protagonist of The Last Good Man. As a forty-nine-year-old mother of three adult children, she’s not your usual action hero–but then she’s not your usual forty-nine-year-old mom, either. True is an army veteran, working now as a military contractor. She’s seen her share of battlefield action and she understands all too well the pain that parenthood can bring. In this opening scene, True encounters a father desperate to hire the services of Requisite Operations to rescue his kidnapped daughter:

Read the entire first chapter of The Last Good Man here.

Best wishes for the day, whether you’re a mother or not. 🙂

Over the years my books have won a devoted following and that’s been so very gratifying. Still, they’ve never sold well. Not when I’ve put them out myself and not when they’ve been New York published. Of course, there has never been a real publicity campaign behind any of my work.

With my forthcoming novel, The Last Good Man, I’m doing the publicity myself and I’m doing what I can, but this time around I’ve decided to stop pretending. A friend of mine once said that even if a writer isn’t doing well in the market, it’s important to try to maintain “the illusion of momentum” — that is, to give the appearance that one’s career is steadily improving. I’ve tried to do this in the past, but I’m not going to anymore. I’m going to share facts instead.

To start, I’m going to chart preorders here on my blog. I’ll update weekly. Keep in mind that my net on each ebook is at most 70% of the list price (exact amount varies by vendor and country) and that I’ve spent more than a year working on this novel while paying out-of-pocket for the services of editors, a copyeditor, and a cover artist. I’m not complaining about the expenses. A business requires investment, after all. But a business also requires enough income to cover expenses with something left over for profit.

So here are the current statistics:

My goal is 500 preorders. The publication date for The Last Good Man is June 20, just a little over five weeks away.

Visit this page to learn more about the novel. You’ll find a link to the Publishers Weekly starred review, blurbs from early readers, and the opening chapter.

More discussion of the reason behind this do-or-die push is here.

**Around 350 subscribers have been long-time subscribers. The others are mostly new to my work, having signed on during recent promotional events. Only 39% of emails sent track as having been opened.

Or should I say, “Read the opening chapter and preorder!”

Yes, yes, I’m pushing this book AND I’m pushing preorders. I’ll be blunt and say that I’ve come to see this as a do-or-die novel for me. (See my “On Promotion” post.) Either New York publishing was right in deciding that my work cannot earn a reasonable return on the investment, or they made a big mistake when they gave me the opportunity to publish The Last Good Man on my own. All of you, the readers (the potential readers), get to decide which it is.

Do you want to talk numbers? We can. So far — five days after preorder links went up — I’ve pre-sold thirty-one ebook copies. Thank you, THANK YOU, to everyone who has preordered.

Can I persuade more of you to do so?

Visit this page to see what early readers have said about the story and then scroll down to read the opening chapter.

Does The Last Good Man strike you as a story that would appeal to you? If so, please consider a preorder. And please mention The Last Good Man to your reading friends.

Thank you.