The Catalain Book of Secrets Is Published

Hullooo! So, you've probably noticed that my new website is live. Isn't she gorgeous? Bizango did amazing work. They were consistent, timely, creative, funny, and amazing communicators. You should probably write a book just so you have a reason to hire them to build you a website. In fact, I am positive I'm going to miss working with them.

But such is life, right? Relationships grow and change.

Speaking of which, The Catalain Book of Secrets is now available wherever books are sold. In keeping with the painful honesty of this self-pubbing journey, I'm going to share my current (as of today) sales figures: I've made $500 on the book through Kindle and sold 31 copies through IngramSpark (ie, to indie bookstores and libraries). These aren't terrible numbers--the book has only been available for sale since 12/12/14--but they are tepid numbers. It makes me panicky.

I tell myself I've done what I can--in the last nine days, I've sent out approximately 160 Kickstarter rewards, 500 postcards to indies, 300 review copies to indie bookstores, 30 review copies to newspapers and another 9 to professional reviewers (*Publishers Weekly*, etc.), put *Seven Daughters* out as a free download for five days as a loss leader, entered *CBS *in the Minnesota Book Awards, done one newspaper interview and one blog post (and am open to many more), and--and this is the biggest and--it's the best book I've ever written. I'm proud of it. *CBS *hit all the notes I wanted it to hit.

And so, I surrender.

I'm trying to do it in the good sense (ie, stop borrowing trouble) and not the weenie sense (I'm taking my soccer ball and going home!), but December has been a tough month, exacerbated by two personal speed bumps that have thrown me for a big-ass loop. But I keep going back to the relief I feel at writing the book I needed to write, and the gratitude at all the love and support I've gotten on this self-pub adventure, and I know I just need to dust myself off...right after I drink some red wine, eat dark chocolate, and watch a slew of 1980s action comedies in my fort. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and much love to you.

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