#1, One Year On

That's a very New York Times-ish headline, but the chart topped was digital...

I had been told by my Sourcebooks marketing lead that 1) there was going to be a Kindle Daily sale for A Wolf in Duke's Clothing on March 7, and that 2) Julia Quinn, author of the source material for Netflix's Bridgerton, was going to mention the book on Facebook and that she'd likely tag me, but to keep an eye out just in case.

I got the email at 10:30pm Irish time and yeah, didn't fall asleep for some time after that.

In the run up to the sale, I made my Canva designs for Twitter and Insta, and unpinned A Most Unusual Duke from the top of my Facebook page. I scheduled a Twitter storm, which I'd never done before, and promised myself I wouldn't stalk Ms Quinn's page.

I'd been busy with the dreaded process of synopsizing two new novels, so that kept my mind occupied; I had a full day working from home to look forward to, as well as conducting an interview on my lunch hour. That morning, as a matter of course, I checked my phone after the third alarm; before I hit Wordle, I checked my email.

And found an alert that I'd been mentioned by Julia Quinn.

The day built and built from there.

Wowzers. My phone was beeping and hopping with the tweets and retweets. I duly tagged Sourcebooks, my agent and my agency with my updates on Insta. I kept refreshing Ms Quinn's page and was screenshotting everything. It was a bit weird to be 5 hours ahead of the hubbub in the States, and I was able to keep my mind (ish) on my work. Did I go out for some air? I honestly can't remember.

“Yes, the boost from an established, successful, and gracious and generous author was like installing a rocket engine in a Dodge Dart, but in addition to that is the necessary and welcome support from everyone who made this whole book happen from the ground up.”

And then the thing with the Amazon categories kicked off.

I'm stunned I didn't break the Command and R keys throughout the rest of the day; neither did my poor phone know what hit it. I don't recall how it occurred to me to check the standings because I've never been in this situation before, but when I finally went to bed — despite having threatened to take to it from about 7pm on — WIDC was #2 in three categories.

Tuesday am, third alarm, grabbed the phone, refreshed: #1. We hung there into Wednesday morning.

What an education. Yes, the boost from an established, successful, gracious and generous author was like installing a rocket engine in a Dodge Dart*, but in addition to that was the necessary and welcome support from everyone who made this whole book happen from the ground up: my agent, my agency, my publisher.

Throw in a social media sweep and WIDC was out there enough for one day to give it that massive boost.

But also! Just goes to show:

>that your book has life in it as long as it's available.

>that I've gone some way to figuring out how to better use social media.

>that despite all the hullaballoo, my accounts still need an infusion of followers and the notion that this didn't help them to any great degree is sobering.

>I need more exposure therapy to exposure because I thought I was going to collapse at one point. In a good way.

At bottom of what I learned: NGU, never give up, and NSP, never stop promoting. It's easier to do when it's exciting and you're seeing the results, but it is, without doubt, absolutely worth it.

*I would drive the stuffing out of a 1970s Dodge Dart, btw

A Wolf in Duke's Clothing and A Most Unusual Duke, the first two instalments in The Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde series are published by Sourcebooks, available now from all good booksellers!