Boss Snakes

Boss Snakes has been sent to the printer, so should be available in a few weeks, so long as I don't spot any problems with the print copy. Details will post to CoachwhipBooks.com.

Top Christmas Sales

December usually gets a good bump in sales, but a few titles sell better than others. The top five books for Coachwhip Publications this month:

#5: Missionaries & Monsters

#4: Cryptozoology and the Investigation of Lesser-Known Mystery Animals

#3: Cryptozoology: Science & Speculation

#2: The Historical Bigfoot

#1: The Compleat Angler

The Compleat Angler sells about as many copies in the UK as it does in the US for me, and just seems to make a nice little gift.

4 More for Kindle

Four more ebooks for Amazon's Kindle program. Three I already have in paperback (Blue Tiger, Paley's Natural Theology, and The Rational Creation), but one is a reprint I haven't yet put out in physical book form (though it will be coming out in 2008): Barnum's Humbugs of the World.

Nice to be #1

After putting up a few test ebooks on Amazon's Kindle store, I forgot about it for a few days, as I didn't expect too much from it. No sense putting too much effort into something with a low ROI, particularly when it's too easy for a small publisher to get lost in the crowd. Checked in today, and saw that all four titles have sold at least 1 copy, with Christmas! selling four copies so far. Amazingly, this places that title as the current #1 in the Fiction > Genre Fiction > Anthologies category, and #3 in Fiction > Short Stories category. Overall, it is #689. Kind of sad, really. I'm not sure this bodes well for Kindle as a generalist ebook distributor. I'm sure, that in Long Tail fashion, the most popular books are selling many, many copies, but there seems to be a pretty steep curve there...

What is particularly annoying, though, is that when you search the Kindle Store for "Christmas," this title comes up as #88, while most of the titles that come up first have far larger rankings (fewer copies sold recently). I'm guessing most of my sales are coming from links from this website, rather than Amazon searches, but don't have any way to test that theory.

More on Kindle

I've got 4 books uploaded now, all are anthologies of classic short stories. Last two are cryptozoological fiction. Two are live now on Amazon, the others should be by tomorrow. Details here.

Trees of Terror

The second anthology uploaded to Amazon's Kindle ebook program. Will retail $2.99. Should be available within 12 hours, according to Amazon.

Contents: The Walk to Lingham (Lord Dunsany), The Orchid Horror (John Blunt), The American's Tale (Arthur Conan Doyle), The Treasure in the Forest (H. G. Wells), The Willows (Algernon Blackwood), The Man-Eating Tree (Phil Robinson), The Purple Terror (Fred M. White), Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant (Howard R. Garis), The Flowering of the Strange Orchid (H. G. Wells), The Man Whom the Trees Loved (Algernon Blackwood)

Kindle Test

What with Amazon promoting their new Kindle ebook reader, I'm going to test a few texts with it, even with the lousy 35% they offer publishers. (And, of course, customers expect retail prices lower than hardcopies anyway... if anything stalls Amazon's market here, it's going to be this. Most small publishers just aren't willing to lose that much money on a sale.) But, first will start with a holiday selection of short stories, Christmas! 12 Holiday Classics. Cheap at 99 cents. Next will be a selection of cryptobotany short stories.