People email me to tell me their book’s shipped, or arrived early (which is great), and other people email to ask what’s up with Amazon not shipping their book not arriving yet, because they pre-ordered it in January, and my answer is “I have no idea.”
One of the things I didn’t realize until I started writing for the BP annuals was how little visibility authors have into what happens after the manuscript is turned over. I knew, vaguely, of a lot of different minor issues with this clearance or that photo, and I knew the release moved back because I had a spring training event I was originally supposed to be selling books for, and the release date slipped past that (I gave out bookmarks).
But I really didn’t know that Amazon was shipping books out the door until the day they did it. I didn’t know why some people’s date moved all the way up, and why other people’s copies didn’t ship until yesterday (or why the release date re-appeared as April 2nd for a while, though Amazon shipped a ton of copies out one day).
This is one of the reasons that authors are so obsessed with their Amazon sales rank. Amazon sales rank isn’t a great indicator of how many copies are moving, but they’re some piece of information, and the alternative is not knowing anything until you get a royalty statement from the publisher in a year or two.
All of which is to say - I’m sorry I haven’t been able to answer those questions. I wish I could, I really do.
zzyzx | 28-Mar-07 at 9:53 am | Permalink
My book arrived yesterday from Amazon. By coincidence, I was too sick today to work or to think about obscure programming issues, so I’ve been devouring it. I loved the ginger snap reference.
Terrence | 28-Mar-07 at 10:39 am | Permalink
Received my copy from Amazon yesterday. Will post a review on Amazon over the weekend - at first glance it’s excellent. Good job Derek!
Michael | 28-Mar-07 at 2:58 pm | Permalink
DMZ,
Got my copy today, can’t wait to get into it. I will post a review on amazon as soon as it’s finished. Thanks Derek.