Monday, April 9, 2018

Does my family read my books?

Some of them do.

A few.

My family is...complicated.

My sister, who was the webmistress for my page for a long time, read all of my books. She still does, but I have to remember to send them to her

My other sisters? Well, I've given both of them copies. They keep promising to read.

My oldest brother? Yes.

My second oldest brother? We don't speak any more. My choice. So, no.

My parents are both deceased. My mother had a full collection of my books and told me she was proud of me, but never read them. She didn't like scary stuff. She read one short story of mine and it brought tears to her eyes and she loved it, but there was a ghost at the end and that rather annoyed her.

Two of my nephews do.

The others might. I don't honestly know.

To be fair, one of my sisters has been known to write erotica and I can't bring myself to read it. not my cup of tea.

The thing is, there's never an obligation. If they read it and enjoy it, I am delighted. If they choose not to read it, that's okay, too.  I used to give copies of all of my books to every family member. One of my siblings asked that i give copies of my books to a good friend. I suggested handing over the copies I'd already given to that sibling, especially since the books n question were limited editions that ran between forty-five and several hundred dollars in the secondary market. I am nowhere near that generous. I'd have to get a third job to pay the rent. Then I realized that most weren't reading the books and brought that practice to a screeching halt. Im good with offering copies to relatives that will READ them, but listen even if they were comp copies (and only some of them were.) you only get so many of those, and they can be put to better use than just gathering dust on a relative's shelf.

These days, I'm more likely to send a mobi file.

If they want to read the book that is.

Two of my limited edition covers. The top one, Bloodstained Oz, was selling for 7-800 dollars in the secondary market before we decided to put out an ebook format. That was for the numbered edition. The lettered edition (of which there are only 27) was selling fro closer to $3,000.00, The mind boggles.






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