Try number 2 this time around

[kinzel]

Well...

Meisha Merlin says they have less than 10 copies of Crystal Dragon on hand... which means that what they had has been sold or is all in the distribution pipeline. The book has been doing fairly well over on amazon.com, running at around 25,000 or so in rank 6 or 7 months after initial release, and with a lot of books ordered direct in the first place... both amazon and bn.com report they can still ship in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, I went by the barn that burned a few miles from here last night, causing a ruckus. It used to be a great big barn... I have a few photos..I'll try to get one or two up later on.

Both the home mailbox and the post office were disappointments today in terms of checks, but we got some *great* ads, including one with a handy opt-out form that went right back into the mail...send us *no more* credit card applications, thanks. I've been averaging three credit card offers a day between the home address and the office address... please, I'd need a Brinks truck to carry them all if I accepted a month's worth...and then I'd need the standard rich and famous movie contract, too!

Been playing bravely with Firefox 2.0 release candidate, with no problems of note. I like the speed.

Played briefly in Second Life today -- I'm adding advertising panels to my airship, you see, they say "Read Science Fiction"... and I have hopes that a fancier version will be up soon, thanks to the resident SL/FoL art whiz. Thanks to some lucky trades I/Elan has... an airship, several different jet cars, a spaceship...and not enough room to put them all out.

If you're in SL and missed Rolanni's nice merry go round... it's running daily at Friends of Liad Park. The airship is currently parked at the park as well. I chatted in SL with... 4 members of the FoL, by the way, and got into discussion about Brunner, Ballard, and Delany all having books that seem to prefigure the SL world. Imagine... also thought it was funny that, as usual, SF geek talk was able to chase away more than half of the folks wandering by. Fans, we don't get no respect....

Comments

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Is Crystal Dragon coming out in paper? I have not seen it anywhere -- not at cons, not on the Merlin table at WorldCon, not in my bookstores. I'd hate to miss it, but being unemployed, I need to do it for less than a hardback costs!

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Crystal Dragon *just* came out in hardcover and in general the trade paper comes out some time after the hardcover (even if MM didn't always do it that way...). MM says the soft cover will be out... and you can pre-order it now at their site.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Evening news reports another "structure fire" in Albion. Has one of Sharon's characters broken out?

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

We heard the engines go by, again... it could well be the same place, because the pix I have from this morning show there was still smoldering hay being pitched down from the old barn. If they missed something we coulda had a flare up.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

...and it turns out it was another place that burned...maybe a mile away from the first. It's 3:39 and I haven't heard any fire equipment yet today...

Stopping Credit Card Offers

[gcsbook.livejournal.com]

Pay https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ a visit

Re: Stopping Credit Card Offers

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I second this recommendation. I did it at least a year ago, and I've only gotten one credit card offer since that wasn't from a company I already had some kind of relationship with.

That reminds me . . .

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

When I was looking at the new Bujold book (The Sharing Knife?) the other day, Amazon listed Crystal Dragon as one of the other books that people bought - something like the third or fourth in the list. I thought at the time that being linked with a brand-new Bujold book was a good thing. Sorry, forgot to mention it - and have no idea if there's some way to trick Amazon into showing it again.

Re: That reminds me . . .

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I think the point is that it's not a "trick"...the machine
matches what people are actually buying, as seen by the all-knowing database mining that amazon does.

The fact is that many people from one "community" -- Liaden Universe readers -- are also members the "other " community, that is people who buy LMB's books... so what we need is a way to get more people into both communities. to keep the names and reading suggestions connected, so we have synergy convincing folks to buy both books.

OK, so beat your drum -- if you like Bujold books, you'll probably like Liaden Universe books by Lee and Miller. If you like books by Lee and Miller, you'll most likely like Bujold books. That's not hard to remember... tell your friends.

I'll point out that this morning's Crystal Dragon "also bought list" is:

# Crystal Soldier (The Great Migration Duology, Book 1) by Sharon Lee
# Sword of Orion (Beneath Strange Skies, Book 1) by Sharon Lee
# Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon
# In Fury Born by David Weber
# Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair

So if we follow that up we see that at Engaging the Enemy the list today is:

# In Fury Born by David Weber
# At All Costs (The Honor Harrington) by David Weber
# Marque and Reprisal by Elizabeth Moon
# Crystal Dragon (The Great Migration Duology, Book 2) by Sharon Lee
# 1634: The Ram Rebellion (Assiti Shards) by Eric Flint

...

so readers of Elizabeth Moon, David Weber, Eric Flint... and perhaps John Ringo (whose works show up on other Weber and Moon lists) should be encouraged to try each other's work.

In the past there's also been a pretty fair overlap between CJ Cherryh readers/buyers and Lee and Miller readers and buyers...... for awhile both Pretender and Destroyer had mutual links to Liaden stuff... though right now they seem to point to each other and other works in the same series...

We also have been seeing overlap with Linnea Sinclair on a couple lists...
Sword or Orion has several of hers listed right now as also-boughts...
and going to one of her books randomly finds this list this morning:

# Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair
# An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra) by Linnea Sinclair
# Wintertide by Linnea Sinclair
# Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
# Crystal Dragon (The Great Migration Duology, Book 2) by Sharon Lee

and since Patricia Briggs has shown on a couple lists maybe if there's a Patricia Briggs community the way there's a Lee and Miller community and and LMB communty and a Baen books community... Patricia Briggs readers should be encouraged to read mree Lee and Miller *since some of them already are*...

Amazon helps make some of those connections, and a few active fans can help spread the word even more.