But was it a good read?

Too early to tell yet if my GoodReads investment was worth it. I'm pushing hard at leaving reviews and (shorter, pithier) blog posts over there. Haven't dipped into the forums yet; I'm afraid of the time sink that could turn into.

So a thousand people turned up and a hundred of them walked away with a copy. According to the stats, though, only five people are currently reading. Not that GoodRead tracks; this is entirely the choice of the readers.

For whatever reason, my numbers kicked up briefly over on Amazon:

Yeah, Amazon is assigning those categories, not me. Anyhow, must be a slow week.

I am still struggling with the way I've foolishly fallen between genres. It makes it so much tougher to market. I wish I was working on The Tiki Stars. Now there's a title that tells you exactly where the book falls! (Rollicking retro-future space opera, if you had to ask.)

And I keep getting tempted to find a cover artist and have them go over my covers to make them look more professional. Except I had such poor luck trying to get that happen before. Even if I decide that the problem was that I wasn't spending enough, the artists with a higher price tag also seem to be organized differently; they really want you to tell them your genre and then leave them alone to do whatever it is they chose to do.

(Except the same tyranny of menus is there, too; pick one, two, or three stock photographs. Pick one or two fonts. And for the same fixed fee we'll provide 3d renderings of what a book looks like...who the hell uses those, I ask?)

That, and if I'm spending money, maybe I should get a hand-drawn Cozy Mystery cover, or a map-and-trinket Travel Adventure cover, or a Glowing Artifact archaeology-thriller cover...