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From the category archives:
Midnight Rain
Got the neatest news today. I sold (or, rather, Penguin Putnam sold) Bulgarian translation rights to MIDNIGHT RAIN; the book should be available in Bulgaria and wherever else the purchasing publisher distributes sometime this month.
Bulgarian rights. So cool.
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While I’m damned wary about hoping too much, considering the way these things have gone the past eleven times … well, I’m an optimist. And I really like this project. It brings in Brig from MIDNIGHT RAIN as the hero, and an EMT-Paramedic named Dia as the heroine, and a gift-leaving stalker, and alligators in a canal in dicy, grim circumstances. And what might or might not be a ghost. And it features EMTs and rescue in Ft. Lauderdale — real adrenaline-junkie stuff. (As an ex-ER RN, I am an adrenaline-junkie — I know my own).
God, I hope I get to write this book.
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Hot damn — a couple of the weird little pictures from yesterday’s brainstorming session just clicked in a very big way, and words are flying.
I’m finding Dia’s stalker fascinating — he’s a product of his times, his education, and his passions, and he has some weird damned quirks … but they aren’t weird for him. For him, they make perfect sense.
Brig I already loved. When he walked into Midnight Rain, I knew I wanted to see more of him. He’s from Montana, one of my all-time favorite states … and I didn’t know that before. He’s developed a little quirk of his own since the last book he was in.
And Dia. She’s modeled on an EMT-turned-RN I worked with in Cheraw, SC, back when I was house supervisor — she’s not a straight steal, but she’s got all the characteristics about Jola that I admired most.
Back to work, then — this is going strange places, and I must follow if I can.
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Quote from Twain. Some numbers from Midnight Rain. ‘Cause you know I was to the point of reinventing myself because of my fear of the numbers on Midnight Rain, and the fact that I’d heard it hadn’t done as well as everyone hoped.
How well did it do?
In its first reporting period, it earned out its own $25,000 advance plus all but about $2000 of Last Girl Dancing’s advance.
In its first reporting period, it sold over 50,000 more copies than any title of mine has ever sold before in a first period, and about that many more than most of my titles have sold lifetime.
It had an acceptable sell-through. Not earth-shattering. I was hoping for the 80%-97% sell-through that most of my other books have averaged, but the fact that this was essentially a first novel, that it was shelved where most of the people who have been my readership for the last fourteen years will never have found it, and that a LOT of copies were printed make that kind of sell-through nearly impossible. It’s almost certain to have sold almost entirely to readers for whom this was the first introduction to my work.
So Midnight Rain didn’t do as well as everyone hoped? No, it didn’t. When you’re hoping for break-out bestsellerdom, it didn’t do that.
It did, however, do well for a first novel. If I can find any sort of repeat readership from the folks who liked it, and who I hope went out and bought Last Girl Dancing because they liked it, I might have something solid to build on.
No gimmes here. I’m not out of the woods — you’re only as good as your last book, and Last Girl Dancing is, in suspense, my book of the moment.
Still, the Twain quote in the title seemed apt. I’m still alive as a suspense writer. Still kicking. And almost ready to send the outline for the third book off.
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Fascinating discussion here about the difference between Amazon numbers and WalMart numbers.
Link via Alison Kent
As someone who, for the first time in my career, has (with my debut into suspense) landed a couple of titles on WalMart shelves, I’m more than a bit interested in what effect this will really have on my sales. Won’t see even first inklings until around this December, but if I can get any meaninful numbers, I’ll share.
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Heard from Claire that Rhapsody Book Club picked up book club rights for MIDNIGHT RAIN. This is a big deal for me because I’ve never had any of by books picked up by a book club before. Tentative pub date, Nov. 2005.
Firsts matter.
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MIDNIGHT RAIN has been nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Romantic Intrigue. I’m delighted and honored to have been nominated — I’m in very good company.
For more information, go to Romantic Times, scroll down to the “RT Awards” link, click that link, then choose Reviewers’ Choice 2004 Nominees. (Not Lifetime Achievement, which I accidentally clicked first.)
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MIDNIGHT RAIN, French rights. Could not have come at a better time. I’m greatly cheered.
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I’ve been pinging about MIDNIGHT RAIN. About how it’s doing, you know? I have no way of finding out how it’s doing, nobody to ask, and I’m also a little afraid to know the truth. But more afraid not to know.
See, the viability of a writer’s career is based upon sell-through of print run. Sell-through — that is, the percentage of copies printed that actually sell — is vitally important. In the industry 60%-70% is considered pretty good overall, and I have almost always done better than that. My average sell-through has always been between 80%-95%.
Looks impressive, huh?
Unfortunately, this has been on an average copies printed of 20,000-30,000, which is utterly, inescapably, irrevocably midlist. Publisher sees your sell-through, goes, “Oh, wow,” then sees your copies printed and revises that to just, “Oh.”
I had, before MIDNIGHT RAIN, about half a million books in print floating around out there, and figure the majority of them went to people who like my work and who therefore have (or had, before trading in) more than one book by me. Others of my books would have sold to people who, having read that one, have said, “Never doing that again.” (Wow. Pausing for moment to look out window at beautiful sunrise.) Some have been read by folks who don’t notice author names. I figure, best case, I probably have an actual readership of about 20,000-25,000 people who might see my name on the cover of a book and pick it up just because of the name.
Okay. So.
MIDNIGHT RAIN came out with a first printing of 175,000 copies. This is a good thing. Gives me a chance to reach a LOT of new readers, to find new people who like my work. It is the first shot I’ve ever had at having a breakthrough book.
Downside, though — and this is where I’m getting the heebie-jeebies — is that it gives me an absolutely spectacular opportunity to fall flat on my face. Here’s why.
The absolute make-or-break sell-through is right at 50%. You sell less than half the copies of the books the publisher prints, you’re looking for either a new job or a new name. 50%.
Okay. 50% of 175,000 copies is 87,500 copies.
Which means if I expand my readership by a mind-boggling 300% — to 60,000 readers — my sell-through will be 34%. A dismal, nightmarish flop.
If I expand my readership by 400% — to 80,000 readers — my sell-through will be 46%. Thanks, ooooh, so close, nice knowing you.
To do well — to have the publisher’s accountants really WANT me back — I need to sell-through at better than 60%. This means I need to sell 105,000 copies of MIDNIGHT RAIN or better.
A 525% increase in readership.
So. Anybody up for standing around in bookstores going, “Oh, man, you just have to read MIDNIGHT RAIN?”
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