“So, this is your apartment? Nice. Where can I slip into something more comfortable?”
“Right over there, in the door past that copy of Finn Fancy Necromancy. Oh my gosh, have you read it? It’s REALLY exciting and funny an — uh, like you. I’ll get the wine.”
Why do I give this fine example of Finn Fancy love? Well, let’s play a quick Choose Your Own Finnventure:
You come across a dark and quirky contemporary fantasy series that features lots of humor, magic, action, romance, sasquatches, gnomes, Fey, social unrest, family drama, 80s and 90s references, and more.
If you find that uninteresting, fair enough, turn back to page Facetweet and have an awesome day.
If you think it might be cool for the series to continue past book 3, continue reading.
The Finn Fancy series is not in trouble, but it has reached its first critical test. Whether or not Tor wants to publish more Finn Fancy books will likely be based on sales of book 1 and pre-sales of book 2 over the next few weeks. Just because that’s how the industry works.
What this is: Me asking you to take a few minutes to support Finn Fancy if you’ve read and enjoyed it, OR if dark and quirky contemporary fantasy is something that interests you and you MIGHT read it someday. Or if you are just feeling generous toward me and want to support my dream, I suppose.
So if you DO want to help guarantee more Finn Fancy books, here’s what you can do, in rough order from most impact to least. I’ve tried to make it easy:
1) BUY THE BOOKS. You can buy Book 1: FINN FANCY NECROMANCY, and/or Book 2: BIGFOOTLOOSE AND FINN FANCY FREE in your preferred format at any of the links below. Or if you plan to attend one of my readings for Bigfootloose and intend to buy the book, pre-order from that bookstore and let them know.
Finn Fancy Necromancy:
Bigfootloose Available for Pre-Order (Releases February 16, 2016):
2) PROMOTE THE BOOKS on your social media. Here’s some images and sample 140 character text you can copy/paste and then tweak to make your own, or you can of course just let the inspiration flow.
I loved Finn Fancy Necromancy, and so excited for Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free! If you like fun, funny fantasy: http://amzn.to/20bfYWg
3) REVIEW THE BOOKS. If you’ve read them, give them honest reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes (at the same links as listed above for purchasing), and Goodreads (links below). (I can’t give you words to copy/paste here, that would feel wrong. And not in a good way.).
Goodreads for Finn Fancy Necromancy
4) TELL PEOPLE in live conversations that you enjoyed/ are interested in the Finn Fancy series. In addition to the fine example in the opening of this post, here’s a couple more:
Example 1:
“Read anything good lately?”
“Yes, Finn Fancy Necromancy! It was really fun and funny, you should totally read it!”
Example 2:
“Where do you want to eat tonight?”
“Someplace with good light for reading. I just can’t put this book, Finn Fancy Necromancy, down! It’s so good! Just like Greek Pizza, full of exiting and rich flavors, yet also pretty cheesy.”
“Soooo … pizza then?”
Example 3:
“Honey, what safe word should we use?”
“‘Finn Fancy.’ Because it’s a really exciting and adventurous series that isn’t afraid to explore pain and laughter, but sets clear boundaries and expectations.”
“Ummm …”
Well, you get the idea.
What this is not: desperation, or me asking folks to save my series just because, or me not knowing what I’ll do if Tor doesn’t buy more. I think book 1 sold pretty well*, and if not I’ll be fine if they don’t buy book 4. I’ve been incredibly blessed to be published as is, and I love writing the Finn Fancy books, but if the series ends I will write other things. And Finn will be fine — he can quit getting into danger and drama and go write video games on his Commodore 64 in the Heaven of Retired Characters.
But all the feedback I’ve received is that readers loved Finn Fancy Necromancy, and I’d hate for Finn Fancy to die not because of a lack of interest, but rather just because I dislike doing the self-promotion thing too much**. Especially when there is a very specific sales period like this that can really matter.
So thank you if you’ve taken any of these actions, and thanks so much to all of the readers, booksellers, librarians, and friends who’ve helped Finn Fancy and my writerly dreams live and shine bright.
Footnotes (that might be of informativational interest to writerly types):
*Book 1 sold decently in hardback — “decently” being defined (with my complete lack of previous experience or context in these matters) as enough to sell through its advance and a bit more, but it didn’t require multiple printings or anything — and is now out in Trade Paperback. So while I’m hopeful that Tor isn’t exactly disappointed, I’m also sure they’re not leaping up like meerkats, impressed by this hot new author or anything). I’m in that uncertain area of thinking it is very possible they’ll want more but also very possible they won’t. I honestly believe sales in the next month will be very important in this decision. Book 2 comes out February 16th. Because of the long publishing cycle, Tor really can’t wait and see how books 2 and 3 actually sell over time before deciding whether to contract book 4. The constraints of linear time and temporal integrity directives can be so annoying sometimes. Or to put it another way, I would need to have book 4 written before book 3 even comes out. Traditional publishing cycles are funky that way.
**While Finn ended up on personal fave lists, I didn’t do the work of reminding people about my books as the big names/sites were compiling their 2015 Year’s Best lists or their 2016 Most Anticipated lists or nominating books for awards etc. Not to imply it would have definitely gotten on such lists if I had, yet weirdly, I felt bad for Finn. He deserved better of me. I know it is a perfectly legit and necessary part of the promotion game, but I just didn’t feel comfortable doing so. Which in the end perhaps does the series a disservice, and could harm the potential of more books in a series people seem to enjoy. It’s such a weird circular dance. So I’m biting the bullet and being self-promotiony about this, because this at least is just a direct and meaningful act of reader democracy: if you like the books (or think you might), you can vote with your support to continue the series.
