As I write this, the Narrow Road Between Desires has been published for six days. Not quite a week.
I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it on the blog recently, but the first week of sales for a book are pretty important. It’s sort of similar to how people mention how much money the opening weekend of a movie made: it’s an easy metric that quantifies the movie’s success. It doesn’t indicate how *good* the movie is, mind you. But even so… there’s an implication…
Luckily, publishing isn’t nearly so tied to just a couple days worth of numbers as a metric for success. But even so, the first couple weeks of sales *do* determine if you hit various bestseller lists. Those things, in turn, make a difference in terms of who pays attention to your book, who reviews it, how many copies bookstores order moving into the holidays, etc.
Of course, I don’t know what my numbers actually *are* at this point. But I’m guessing they’re… okay? I’m hoping they’re okay.
The sort of numbers I do have access to are… the same numbers you do. Numbers of reviews. Star ratings on various websites. Stuff like that. And while I don’t obsess over those things the way I *used* to do… I’m only human, so of course I look.
As I mentioned on the blog last week, before Narrow Road was even published, it had more than a hundred one-star reviews which led to it having a stunning 2.1 star rating.
And yeah, that might seem bad at first. But once you realize the *lowest* you can rate a book is one star…. it actually means it’s not a five-star system. It’s more like it’s a four-star system, and the book had a 1.1 star rating…
Which, among other things, shows that math very rarely helps you feel better about people being pissy.
I’ll admit, I wandered back to goodreads a few times over the last week. Much the same way it’s hard to stop touching a bruise once you know it’s there… Imagine my delight when I saw that on the day of publication, about a 150 people who had actually *read* the book left reviews, which brought things up to about 3 stars….
Which made me feel better, until I realized that put Narrow Road slightly *below* TekWar by William Shatner.
And here’s the thing. I’m not throwing shade here. I only read TekWar once, back in the day. And Shatner’s a better actor than I am. But contrariwise, I’d hope that I’m a better writer than him. And if nothing else, I’d hope that my *fourth* book would at least rank a little bit above his first…
Still as Oot says when he’s trying to build something in MineCraft: “Comparators are the thieves of joy.” I know better that to hang my happiness on plaudits from the hoi polloi…
Fast forward to today though, when I wandered over to look at Narrow Road on goodreads I saw this…
And I have to say, that feels a little better. Not only that it’s almost up at 4 stars, which is nice, but that over a thousand of y’all have taken the time to read and rate the book even though it’s only been out for about six days…
What’s more, that puts it slightly *above* Slow Regard in terms of stars. (Which is a better sort of comparison to engage in.) If Narrow Road turned out as well as Slow Regard, well… then I’m pretty happy.
So… yeah. Thanks. Thanks to all of you who have been picking up the book, or leaving reviews, or telling your friends. I really appreciate it.
In other news, check out this hotness:
These got released in the UK about a week or two ago, and I’ve been too tangled up in one thing and another to post up pictures of them yet. But honestly? They look gorgeous…
Check out those endpapers, y’all…
And they’re different in the The Wise Man’s Fear:
I haven’t managed to get my grubby little hands on one yet, but I’m hoping it won’t be too long…
And speaking of different covers…
(I stole this off instagram, because the purple suede makes me feel like a fancy prince.)
I always love seeing the foreign covers of my books, and this one I love even more than usual. It’s not just because it’s my baby, and I love it no matter what. (It’s a little that.)
The real reason I love this cover extra much is because Nate Taylor did this art. (Remember him? The guy who did the illustrations?) What’s more, I kinda helped him…
But that, as they say, is another story, and I’ve got to get to bed…
Take care of yourselves, everyone.
pat