Are there really 7 books in the series for Kate???
What kind of time frame is there between the use of a power word and when the physical cost for saying/using it comes? Does it vary? Do power words work against vampires? Can someone use the same one she used against Derek and get them to obey without a handler? Sorry. I think of all these technical things when I read….
Saiman sipped his drink. “Most people don’t survive an encounter with a power word,” he said, studying the deep amber of cognac in his glass. “Those lucky few who manage to keep their lives fall into coma, which usually lasts a few hours to a few days. Some never emerge from it and die quietly, exhausted by the struggle with the magic, and those who do assimilate the power word, wake up exhausted.”
Thank you for the lecture, professor. “Your point?”
He set his drink down. “You’re merely drowsy. Also, there is a level IV protective ward on the floor of your apartment. A ward of that complexity would cost me anywhere from two to three thousand from a qualified adept. With that kind of power, you don’t own a proper bed, wear cheap shoes, and heat your squalid apartment with a wood stove.”
The pain slashed my back. I strained and let out a single word. “Amehe.”
The power word tore from me in a flash of agony as if my insides were suddenly ripped from my stomach. The wall shielding the reeve’s mind shattered. Diaperhead howled in his tentacle net.
The gaping pit that was the reeve’s mind opened before me. I took it into my fist and squeezed. The hair noose loosened. The hair still held me, but the crushing pressure had vanished.
I looked through the reeve’s eyes and through my own. Through this strange double vision I saw Julie curled on the floor in a tiny fetal ball. Diaperhead stared at me. I sensed him waiting in the deep recesses of the reeve’s mind. He brimmed with hate, not just for who I was but for what I was. He seethed, his rage barely contained, a malignant terrible creature who wished the end of the human kind. Disgust swelled in me, an instinctual xenophobic response, so strong, it threatened to overwhelm all reason.
I forced the hair to unwind. It let me go slowly, hesitantly. Even with a power word, I wouldn’t be able to hold the reeve for long. The moment I fumbled, Diaperhead would seize control.
Reeves aren’t vampires, but it’s the same principle.
Someone asked me about what was better for the author, to have the book preordered or to buy it. I am sorry, I can’t find the email for the life of me. I must’ve accidentaly deleted it.
To answer this have to break one of my rules. I try to limit promotions on the blog. I’ll do giveaways, but I very rarely post reviews (unless they are surprising. I wanted to post this one review from Amazon where the woman was so shocked by Magic Bites, she burned the book. I was terribly proud, but Jeaniene made me promise I wouldn’t.)
But anyhow, when I was an aspiring author, I’d frequent published author blogs and some of them would cram promo down your throat. “Three days till Poopsie the Conqueror releases! It’s not too late to preorder! Order now! Buy my Book!” Some of that is inevitable – I do it, too, but some guys turn it into a relentless Buy My Book campaign. Used to drive me nuts, so I try not to do it. Some of my neurotic stress does come through, but what are you going to do?
This falls squarely into that I won’t talk about it category. But it was asked, so, in purely academic terms: is it better to preorder or to buy in the store?
It’s better to buy it in the store within five business days of the release date. Why? Because the first week of release is the week when most books sell in greatest numbers. The performance in the first week determines whether the author will make USA Today or NYT Bestseller lists. The lists are really important. Making a list will likely result in bigger advance, better promo, and so on. We all want to make the list, me included.
Most books are soft released, which means that bookstores put them out on the shelf about 14-7 days before their official release date. Bookstores do this for a number of reasons, some as simple as inventory management. They want to get the book on the shelves and into customers’ hands.
Authors hate this practice. Let’s say you’re author A and you need to move about 6K books in your first release week to make NYT. You get soft released and your book sells 3K in the week before release and 4 K in the release week. You do not pass go, do not collect bigger advance, do not earn monetary bonus written into your contract and you hate the world for a few days after.
Usually preorders were traditionally counted as release week purchases, but this holiday season, perhaps due to depression, some online retailers shipped books 10 days prior to release date. It’s not clear if those sales were reported and when.
That said, I don’t expect anyone to wait until release date to purchase my stuff. Everybody, unless they are a huge name, gets soft released. Everybody loses a percentage of sales. It’s an even playing field and there is no reason the fans should be penalized for this. Harlequin offers their titles in eform a month before they are released, and if there is a new Susan Napier, Lynne Graham, or Penny Jordan coming out, you bet I’ll snap it up.
In the end, sales are sales. First week, week before first, 18 weeks after release, it all counts. And that is all I will say on this subject
