In May I sold 2301 e-books combining the U.S. and the U.K. I am wide-eyed and astonished at this number especially since my books fall into genres that are tepid at best. The really hot genres that tax the servers at Amazon are paranormal romances and the high priestess of these books is a young woman named Amanda Hocking. Amanda self-published a paranormal series with the name “My Blood Approves” (see current ranking above) that made her a million dollars and ultimately brought her to the attention of the big publishing houses and a movie contract.
“My Blood Approves” are words that pop into my mind at odd times and wiggle around until I pay attention. It's not easy to write a book that sells a zillion copies and yes, I wish I had the kind of imagination that resides in Ms. Hocking. The title is both provocative (where are we going with this?) and homely (the old meaning of homely). Using the deductive approach it would mean my blood is happy to be slurped. The dialogue would go like this. A vampire is coming tonight and he will sink his fangs into your neck and siphon off some of your blood. And the response is” “Okay, bring him on. I checked and my blood approves.”
It could mean “blood” in the sense of ancestry, bloodline, etc. My entire bloodline approves of my fetish. Grammy and Poppy and Uncle Ned like the way I turned out and when I tell them that my teenage boyfriend comes into my bedroom at night and attacks me like a Cheetah or some apex predator at the top of the food-chain tucking into a fresh kill,” they say, “Darling girl, we approve.”
I’m not making fun of it. No one achieves that kind of success without a lot of hard work and a million dollars is nothing to laugh at. This is the story a lot of readers want on their Kindle. Irony and turn of phrase aren’t cutting it on the e-book bestseller lists.
I should get on my knees and thank somebody that while all this paranormal excitement is going on in e-books, 2301 readers bought my old fashioned books where regular people lose jobs, lose weight, find love, find themselves, kiss the regular way and experience the normal excitement of solving some of life’s problems. Thank you to all.
That second paragraph is funny.
ReplyDelete