So here's the deal: we sold over 1000 Storybundle packages (in fact, over 1000 at the bonus level). To celebrate and thank the buyers for their support, I'm going to give away five (5) Alpennia e-books to randomly-selected bundle purchasers who comment on this post. If The Mystic Marriage (in the bundle) is your first introduction to Alpennia, I'd strongly suggest you try book #1 in the series (Daughter of Mystery).
Promotion
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You have just five more days to take advantage of this incredible Storybundle offer featuring speculative stories that feature and embrace LGBT+ characters by authors committed to good representation and solid storytelling. If you’ve already enjoyed even one of the featured books, it’s a good sign that you’ll like others. If you look at the list and spot even two that you’ve been meaning to read, then the bundle as a whole is already a bargain.
I just got an acceptance letter from Lace and Blade 4, an anthology of...well, of stories that the words "lace and blade" conjure up, for "Gifts Tell Truth", a new Alpennia story about Vicomtesse Jeanne de Cherdillac in her wild 20s (and a French spy/opera singer). The anthology won't be coming out until 2018, so that's plenty of time for you to get excited about it.
I don't usually highlight reviews in my blog (I have separate pages for that), but I woke up to a really lovely Goodreads review of The Mystic Marriage from fellow Storybundle author K.J. Charles. If you have ever wanted to try some incredibly well-writen historical fantasy featuring gay male protagonists, K.J.
The LGBT+ Bundle - Curated by Melissa Scott
My publisher is having a massive ebook sale on historical fiction this weekend! (Both Bella Books publications and ones they distribute.) And all three Alpennia books are included!
Pick up some great reads for only $4.99 each.
So the question all my regular readers are wondering about (let’s pretend for a moment, ok?) is whether my month of “book release re-boot” blogging has, in fact, had an effect on sales of Mother of Souls. The simple fact is that I have no idea. (Please note: it may seem in this post as if I'm obsessing over numbers. And some may feel compelled to suggest to me that this only leads to despair. Obsessing over numbers is how I make a living in my day-job. Crunching data is one of my primary self-soothing mechanisms. Analyzing data makes me happy. Please don't harsh my mellow.)
One of the things that struck me when I was reading through lists of November 2016 books was the number written by obviously prolific authors (based on series number) that somehow never get mentioned in the SFF blogs, or featured on SFF podcasts, or discussed in the social media spaces where I hang out. It makes me feel...well, not any less hungry for my work to be talked about, but at least a little bit less alone.
One of the most exciting developments in the speculative fiction field is the growing visibility and recognition of stories rooted deeply in cultures other than the default western European/American ones. I don't say "growing presence" because it is only the wider recognition that is new. Karen Lord has assembled this anthology New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean to showcase some of the excellent SFF being produced in her home region.
We're back to the last couple of November releases that I'm including in this blog series. Rachel Neumeier's The Mountain of Kept Memory takes us to a fantastic secondary world where the gods take seriously their responsibility to protect--or their right to abandon--the realms they watch over.
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