Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Here is a flier for the book signing I'm doing in March along with jimhines , the flier was designed by Dean Stahl (aka wookiee71 ) - is going to be there as well. I had to shrink it down to fit in this blog - sorry Dean!



In other news, I got my December sales numbers from lulu.com the other day. I sold four copies during the month - woo hoo! That puts me at 94.
I got some interesting sales data last week courtesy of author/editor William Jones. He was able to look up my Nielson sales scan data for me - yes, the lameo system that TV uses to guess who is watching what is now being used for books. I'll try and sum up what I learned - first they don't count Amazon, so these are sales at places like Barnes & Noble.

Regions
17 copies sold in the East North Central region
3 copies in the Pacific region
2 copies sold in the South Atlantic region

Geographic Places
12 in Suburbs
8 in City
2 in Rural

Looks like I'm rockin' the suburbs. William also said that the number I need to shoot for is 1,000 copies sold, after that chain stores will take notice. I guess I have some more promotion to do!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that William said that chain stores triple their Nielson scan data, so he said my 22 copies actually count as 66. So, considering that - I only need to sell 333.333 copies to hopefully get noticed by the chains (yeah, only) - and these all have to be sales through a store that actually contributes to this data. Interesting stuff.

I finally got around to uploading the video from when I went to the Barnes & Noble in Grosse Pointe and signed all their copies of The Magic of Eyri. I had fun doing this, although I need to streamline my process a little. I'm going to try and do vlog stuff at ConFusion in two weeks. I may not be able to upload them day by day, but I'll do them at some point. Click here to see the video full sized.



I'm happy with how this turned out since it took a bit of creative editing on my part. The ending recap was shot later on, not the same day as I had intended but it doesn't really matter since it is a recap. I wish I had done these at the other stores I've gone to to sign books, oh well. I'll start trying to keep up on that from now on.

I came home tonight to find a comment on a post over in eyriblog which didn't really make much sense (it was on my post talking about how excited I was when I found out Barnes & Noble had some copies of The Magic of Eyri for sale). It was an annomynous person but they left a name and on a hunch I Googled it.

Looks like I wasn't the only one hit up today.

All of the people in the thread above had the same comment applied to their blogs and I had the exact same message " very interesting, but I don't agree with you" from someone calling themselves Idetrorce. Although in my case I guess it could kind of make sense, because I mentioned that Barnes & Noble having my book is pretty neat and how uncommon it is for them to carry Print on Demand books - and I know from personal experience that it is uncommon - I've had several stores tell me right out no way because it was POD and I even submitted the book to Barnes & Noble's Small Press Department for consideration to get the book in B&N stores. I got back a very nice rejection letter. You can however, special order it through any B&N store and on their website.

I guess it was either just a prank or some kind of spam thing, so I deleted it just like the others in the link above mentioned. Heh.

I should also mention that the first "big" book store to actually order my book for their shelves (that I know of anyway) was Schuler Books in Lansing at their Eastwood Towne Center branch. They are a great store and just as good  as Barnes & Noble (actually better because they are independent). I stop by whenever they have my book in stock and gladly sign them because I appreciate their being one of the first to take a chance on me (along with Everybody Reads).

Went out to the Barnes & Noble in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and signed all of their copies of The Magic of Eyri. They had five - I had heard they had more last weekend (about ten), so it is possible they actually sold a few. They weren't really on an end cap as I heard either - but it is likely they got moved around, but I don't really know for sure. But they were on a table with other Michigan/Detroit themed books - which is still very cool.

And there was even one on the shelf in the sci-fi/fantasy section! Very neat. My lovely assistant (Dad) took pictures and video. Pictures are below (behind the LJ cut link), video will be up later - maybe tonight or tomorrow.

( Click Here to See Pictures or Right Click and Choose to Open in a New Window )
I don't photograph well when I'm hunched over. Sheesh. I didn't like where they put the 'autographed copy' stickers on the covers, but that was partially my fault because at the time I said I didn't really care. Oh well.

My trusty black bic ball point pen was runnin' a little slow today, making it a little hard to sign and draw (I drew a quick sketch of Alexander the Small saying "Reading is Fun!" in one copy). My dad gave me a hard time about my nearly illegible hand writing, but it was hard writing hunched over with an nearly unresponsive pen (and I've been cursed with horrible handwriting my entire life - the reason I stopped handwriting the very first draft of The Magic of Eyri). I may go back to using a Micron pen to sign stuff. 

A friend hipped me to this fiction magazine, Shimmer, who is looking for submissions for their next issue (they publish quarterly). The theme for their next issue is "Clockwork Jungle Book" - in other words, steampunk fables (with animal characters, like Aesop's Fables).

This sounds right up my alley. Most of the characters in The Magic of Eyri are animals, so I'm use to writing that and parts of the book touch on steam punk themes (mostly when it comes to some of the vehicles and technology in Eyri - such as the airships, which is a steam punk staple.). This wouldn't be too much of a stretch for me. The deadline is February and the word count is 3,500 words.

I'm goin' for it. Now I just have to think of an idea or (as they suggest) re-imagine an existing fable. Steampunk is one of my favorite genres and I love a challenge. I'll probably get a nice rejection letter, but that's OK - I need to beef up my collection. This is the stuff I need to be doing: submitting to magazines and such.

In other news: I'm signing copies of The Magic of Eyri at Barnes & Noble today (in Grosse Pointe, MI). Not an official signing, I'm just going in and signing what they have in stock (as mentioned here and here).