As part of Blogmania, the Cajun Book Lady featured an interview with me about The Last Track which ties into a giveaway.

Read the interview and take a chance ( NOTE: Contest last one day only April 30, 2010 )

Also, at 1PM today, leading a workshop on character creation for a group of high school students. By the end, they will have some new tools for building more credible and memorable characters. If I do my job right, that is.

Several  people asked me how The Last Track is selling. The short answer: check back in August. That will be the six month anniversary, and will follow some nice promotions the publisher arranged in June and July. I have not asked for sales figures for a reason.

Six months after the release is a good point to take stock of where things are. At a large publisher, a new title  gets about three weeks to grow legs and walk. If the title isn’t shipping a month after the drop date, the promotion basically ends. At ninety days, the returns start, so even if sales did pick up after the promotion faded into memory, the book has to fight upstream just to break even. And that’s a long hard walk, I’ve been told.

This is one of the reasons I’m fine with being at a small publisher. Less titles means more focus. If I learned anything in martial arts, its that when the smaller opponent fights their fight, instead of the larger opponents, mutes any advantage in size.

But I do know we moved past the friends and family point. There’s questions about the book coming in from people that read it and started following me on Twitter or reading the site, and I don’t know who they are. Perhaps they were lurking quietly all along, but something prompted them to write as of late.

Any way, for those interested, some tour announcements and interviews will follow shortly.

In the meantime, have a cupcake.

If I ever wondered how much alcohol was enough in a single evening, well, now I have a conclusive answer. Gain noticeable weight over a weekend–that’s enough booze.

After dealing with a flood of epic proportions that killed power at work last weekend, and fried five-sixths of the Internet connection for several days, some post St. Patty festivities made for a smart end to Spring Break, albeit a pudgy one. Lesson learned.

Several positive reviews came in over the last few days. Much thanks to everyone for their kind posts. Apparently I’m the first author who netted multiple reviews at What A Book, which is an honor.

Going forward review excerpts will appear on the Reviews page, with some links to the full write-up. So rather than me mentioning new additions, if interested just check the page whenever.

Today marks the beginning of the fifth day of leisure–if one considers poring over sheets of lined paper with a gel pen, outlining a novel particularly relaxing. Not that I do either, but it’s fun. Especially with four cats thrashing about the apartment. Recently learned that when cats rub against the fresh pages, the friction not only smears the text, it leaves streaks on their fur that resembles crop circles.

At some point Wednesday ( or maybe Tuesday, for in Vacationland the days run together ) I realized I hadn’t been outside in two days, and it was time to do something about that oversight. So I visited a neighbor downstairs. The sojourn took me out of the apartment, without actually requiring that I leave the building. Going outside might compromise the mission, which is to forget that the apartment and its contents, myself included, are still in New Jersey. It’s long running campaign.

While leaving did not require shattering the fantasy, stepping out did mean wearing pants, which made for a bittersweet visit, to say the least.

Anyway, some reviews for The Last Track came in recently, which I’m happy about. There’s another giveaway on GoodReads very soon ( perhaps as soon as Friday ), maybe with a St. Patty’s day theme. Also there’s one definite cool announcement that I can announce in about ten days, and a possibly huge announcement that I can not even speculate about with my outside voice just yet.

Here’s the latest review in for The Last Track.