On Time, Weird Perception Of

I was talking with a friend – not Jeaniene, before you ask, heh. This is a friend with whom I have a weekly phone call. Last Friday we found out that Fated Blades had peaked at #4 on Amazon, which surprised the hell out of me. The series is 10 years old. By every measure of traditional publishing, this should have been a dead parrot.

Me: I don’t get it. This was supposed to be a side project and it’s blowing up.

Friend: It’s because it’s you guys. And you haven’t released anything for so long.

Me: … Blood Heir came out in January.

Friend: … No.

Me: January 11th of this year.

Friend: …

Friend: …

Friend: … Well it feels like forever ago. With COVID and all the other problems.

There have been studies done on the passage of time. Some people say that time during crisis like pandemic seems to move slower, others that it moves faster. It’s poll time.

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To add value to this completely silly post, here are some quick answers.

Pre-orders. I get sooo many notifications to pre-order. How does this affect the authors bottom line?

Preorders are great for us. There are some instances where some self-published authors don’t want preorders due to certain algorithm-related concerns, but they simply don’t offer the book for sale before the release date. If you see a link to preorder, it’s a safe bet that the author would appreciate you buying it.

Why do preorders in the first place? Because we have very few opportunities to grab your attention. Life gets busy, people forget about the book coming out, and if they preorder it, the book arrives automatically via digital channels or mail.

Some of you won’t believe me, because you are excited about books from your favorite authors and you can’t imagine how anyone would forget about the date.

September 16 Fated Blades Available for Preorder. Tags: Kinsmen.

September 17 Oh Boy, post celebrating Fated Blades record breaking sales

September 20 New Calendar from Luisa Preissler, Fated Blades cover prominently featured.

September 23rd…

People don’t always get to read every blog post or every press release. Some of you glance at the blog once in a blue moon and that’s why we have brightly colored banners to catch your attention. Preorders buy us a little bit of time to reach a wider potential audience. That’s all it is. There are no other financial incentives for us. We don’t get paid more or les from preorders.

Please don’t feel obligated to preorder.

We want you to order our books on your terms. A sale is a sale, preorder or not. It allows us to continue writing more books.

Are authors from other countries who write in English but are obviously read all over the world encouraged to use American vs British English, or does it matter to the publishing world? I’ve read foreign authors who “sound” American and others who don’t. Is this an author’s voice choice or an editorial choice? Do non-US English versions get localized spelling? Does it depend on who your primary publisher is such as US market vs UK first like JK Rowling was?

I don’t know. We are not one of those authors and I honestly have no idea. Maybe someone who was originally published in UK can answer in the comments. I can tell you that when Golliancz (I probably misspelled this) originally bought the rights to first 3 Kate books for distribution to UK, they did edit them to reflect British spellings and slang.

Is there a blog post somewhere about how HA feels about movie/TV rights to their shows?

We’ve answered this before, so let me summarize briefly. The way this process works is as follows: typically a smaller studio buys rights to the book and develops a packet proposing a film or a TV series. They then take it to major studios and places like Netflix and HBO and shop it to them trying to get a pilot made. If the stars align, which happens very rarely, the studio likes the project and they proceed. This process can be stopped at any time. I know someone who was in the process of filming, with the cast selected, and the studio shut the production down for completely unrelated concerns.

It’s very difficult to get a TV show. It’s harder for someone like us because our work is weird and would require a lot of special effects. We would need a serious budget commitment.

As to how I feel about it. I’ve given up. I don’t believe we will break on screen. On one hand, it would exceptionally beneficial financially. It’s not that the studio would pay us a great deal, but any screen presence is a commercial for the books. Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, GRRM, Julia Quinn, their sales soared. Even if the project is cancelled after it airs, the sales still explode. Of course, that would be great.

But I am also superstitious. I believe that everything in life has a price and I try to be careful what I wish for, so I no longer stress out about any of this. Once in a while our agent lets us know that something is being shopped and I am like, “That’s nice.” First, you are giving up creative control. Second, you invite greater scrutiny of you as a person and I treasure our privacy. Third, the fandom is never fully happy with the adaptations.

If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, I like our life the way it is. We have enough money to pay the bills and we have awesome readers. That’s enough validation. 🙂