Updates

Things are happening. First of all, early reviews are slowly trickling out. The first one is from January Magazine, the second from Absolute Write, and the third by a fellow blogger Dawn. Also, if you look at my Amazon.com page, you would see additional reviews and blurbs.

My book is now listed on multiple booksellers' sites including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Wal-Mart, and Joseph-Beth, among others.

I'm surprised. I know for a fact that not all books (traditionally published, POD, etc.) are listed on these sites. Also, Ingram has changed their policies recently, that they won't stock POD/Vanity books anymore. That must have affected the way online book stores list their books and do business as well, for they will no longer be able to order POD books through Ingram.

Anyway, the idea is to get as much coverage as possible. Amazon, BN and BAMM are the biggest booksellers. Joseph-Beth is big player in the Mid-West. So to get into their database is the first step. Now, I just need to convince them to stock the book in their stores!

I'm making head way. I'll be calling and speaking to the local stores soon, as well as libraries. I've been talking to Linda Keller at Barnes & Noble, who also is in charge of the Mad Anthony Writer's Conference and Book Festival. Well, after some initial wrangling and glitches, I'm in for the book signing, and I'll also to doing a workshop at the conference. That's pretty exciting, I think. It also paves the way for more book signing opportunities.

While working with Linda on the signing, we discovered a glitch with the Barnes & Noble ordering database. According to their internal records, The Pacific Between is marked at "non-returnable." That is like the "kiss of death" for publishers because book stores like BN would not stock any books that are not returnable. Behler definitely has a returnable policy, and according to Ingram, our books are marked as returnable. So the problem lies at Barnes & Noble's internal system. My publish has been very diligent in solving the problem -- they even went to BN's corporate trying to rectify the glitch. I'm happy to report that it seems like everything is okay now.

Joseph-Beth might also be sponsoring a book signing in the near future. Stay tuned for more info...

~ Ray