Today we are joined by Terri Giuliano Long whose book I reviewed a few weeks ago. She has taken the feedback from her first release and revised it for her UK release (The newly edited novel features a new chapter and several new scenes, adding new connections and insights, and tightens the book, cutting 60 pages – all while maintaining the integrity of the original edition). I hope you enjoy her take on bloggers.
An Ode to Bloggers
Last May, a month or so
after I began marketing my novel, In
Leah’s Wake, a former agent told me that I would never sell 500 books. A
rookie, I had no idea what to expect. When I published the novel, I’d dreamed
of selling a 3,000 – 5,000 books, hoping healthy sales numbers would attract
the attention of an agent or traditional publishing house for my next novel.
The agent had left New
York, but she’d been in the business for a long time, and her words stung. I
hung up the phone, heartbroken, depressed. Had I not been in the midst of my
first blog tour, I might have pulled my novel off the market that day.
Determined to see the tour
through, I soldiered on. On the
tour, I met wonderful, caring people, book bloggers, whose kindness buoyed and
sustained me.
Over the next few months, In Leah’s Wake appeared on hundreds of
blogs. Bloggers opened their hearts and spread the word about this quiet
literary novel. In August, In Leah’s Wake
hit the Barnes & Noble and Amazon charts. Now, seven months after my talk
with that agent, the book has been in the Amazon top 200 for over five months,
and we’ve sold just shy of 80,000 copies.
Book bloggers rock! I don’t
know how to say it any better. Book bloggers are the fairy godmothers and
godfathers of the literary world. They invest their talent, their energy, and
their time into reviewing and promoting books – and keeping dreams alive.
Even today, traditional
media refuse to recognize or review indie books. In this very real sense, book
bloggers are the heart and soul of the indie revolution. Their vision, their energy, and their
determination have enabled this amazing populist movement to take hold.
Today, we have the great good
fortune of hearing the funny, poignant, intelligent voices of new authors from
around the world - voices that, just a few years ago, might have been silenced
by the gatekeepers of the old guard. These voices reach into hearts and minds,
forging connections, uniting us in a community of readers and writers,
searching for and finding, through words, the better part of ourselves. Because,
truly, at heart, this is what reading and writing is all about.
Here’s to you, book
bloggers! You are and always will be my heroes!
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