Tag Archives: barnes & noble

Trick or treat? Treat, I hope. My first crime novel, THAT OCTOBER, is great spooky season reading

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Thanks to my Constellate Creatives cohort Jill Blocker for reminding me that it’s almost THAT OCTOBER.

I mean, we’re speeding toward October with a strong tailwind and it’s a good time to remind people that my 2025 novel, a YA thriller that I’ve more often than not referred to as a high school crime novel, is out there in the world. Poor little THAT OCTOBER, which has been out for 15 months-plus now, has taken a backseat to my promotion of SEVEN ANGELS, which came out three months ago.

But THAT OCTOBER – set in October 1984 – is a good fall season read, with Halloween, Elvira Mistress of the Dark on MTV, football, the TERMINATOR and peak 1980s pop music as the mood overlaying the crime story at its heart: When a classmate is killed and another disappears, six high school friends – frustrated by how lackadaisical the adults in town are acting – decide to investigate on their own with the hope of solving their friend’s murder and bringing another friend home.

Along the way, they stumble upon dark secrets not only in their town but also in their own families.

The wonderful author Heather Levy said THAT OCTOBER was “perfect for fans of STRANGER THINGS,” although the only monsters in my novel are the human kind.

You can find THAT OCTOBER literally anywhere books are sold. Here are some salient spots:

Ink Drinkers Anonymous, the Black-woman-owned bookstore in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, through bookshop dot org.

Barnes & Noble has THAT OCTOBER.

So does Amazon, which offers it in paperback or ebook.

And The Hive Bookshop, my friendly neighborhood bookstore here in town. The Hive has signed copies, as does Ink Drinkers and Aw Yeah Comics, the latter two in Muncie, Indiana.

I hope you enjoy THAT OCTOBER.

Celebration: Local bookstore carries my books – and what that means for other indie authors

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I had the coolest experience I’ve had in a long time on Saturday: I signed copies of my novels SEVEN ANGELS and THAT OCTOBER for a bookstore. And not just any bookstore, but my local indie bookstore The Hive, which opened this spring.

(Link to the Hive site at the end.)

I’ve had books in local bookstores for 10 years now, since 2016, when the first of my co-written true crime books, WICKED MUNCIE, was published. Each of the three true crime books that followed were also placed in Muncie bookstores (and in displays at Walgreen’s and other stores) by the History Press. Whatever else you might say about History Press, but they have the juice to get books in stores in and around the area that’s depicted in the book.

Since publishing my first novel, THAT OCTOBER, in June 2025, I’ve tried to get it in stores here in Knoxville, where I’ve lived for not quite four years. The long-established indie bookstore here turned up its nose at my request they carry that first novel. And by turn up its nose, I mean that I brought the book to that store and went through their formal online process for requesting that the store carry a book. I heard crickets back. They just never responded, and it’s been 16 months. 

And yes, I know all about how much of a premium shelf space in bookstores is. Spare me that factoid, please. Because even though Barnes & Noble replied to my request that they carry the book locally with a refusal to do so, at least THEY REPLIED. (They carry my books online, as does virtually every other bookseller, so I appreciate that.)

So I didn’t have high hopes for the Hive, even though pretty early on it was obvious how they liked to focus locally, with space on shelves and book clubs and talks and signings. I asked.

So when the Hive responded a few weeks ago with a “we’d be happy to carry your novels” and this past week said, “Your books have arrived, would you like to come in and sign copies?” I was just incredibly, pleasantly surprised.

(When I vague-posted on social media about this, some people thought I had interest in my books from TV or movies and, yeah, I have gotten a nibble in that regard but I’ve yet to see follow-through and yet to ensure it’s legit. So we’ll see.)

I’ve been lucky since THAT OCTOBER came out that not only libraries back in Indiana but two of my hometown bookstores, Ink Drinkers Anonymous and Aw Yeah Comics, have been happy to carry my novels. And it was a hell of an experience in 2025 when THAT OCTOBER was carried in the bookstore at Bouchercon in New Orleans.

So the Hive carrying my novels and asking me to sign them and even marking them with a “local author” tag was the best thing yet.

In this “all about me” celebration and back-patting here, I’ll note that there’s a slightly larger issue here. I self-published, through the good work of my friend Jill Blocker, THAT OCTOBER and Jill and I published SEVEN ANGELS through Constellate Publishing, the indie publishing imprint and spinoff of Jill’s company, Constellate Creatives. 

So three things can be inferred from my personal victory of The Hive carrying my books: Indie bookstores are the best. Decisions about what books to stock are best made locally.

And indie authors and small imprints should be heartened by the fact that small potatoes book publishing can get your book into bookstores. 

Here’s the link for the Hive on bookshop dot org

https://bookshop.org/shop/hivebookshop

Book sales are up to $32.5 billion, but books are dead, right?

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Books are dead! Long live books!

A while back I wrote a piece for CrimeReads – link at the end of this mini-rant – about how those of us at Constellate Publishing were getting into the book publishing business even though it appeared to be an uncertain time for the industry: Some small publishers had gone out of business and some book distributors were shutting their doors, and yet such notable independent booksellers as Barnes & Noble – sarcasm there – were opening new stores all over.

So which is it? Are writers and designers and publishers doomed or are we seeing a boom time?

Today, Publisher’s Weekly reported:

The Association of American Publishers put 2025 industry sales at $32.5 billion, a 2.5% increase over 2024. Unlike 2024, when unit sales fell, the number of books sold in 2025 inched up 0.4%, to 3.15 billion.

I copied this to a writer friend who replied, in effect, “So publishers are selling a lot of books but are nickel-and-diming us writers to death.”

And yes, PW reported that religion-themed books had seen the biggest increase, but:

Adult fiction sales had the second biggest sales increase, with revenue up 3.9%, to $7.1 billion.

There’s a lot to digest in the report, but here’s a bookstore tidbit:

In terms of channels, physical stores had the biggest increase in the year, with sales up 6%, to $5 billion, an increase likely due in part to the opening of more Barnes & Noble stores as well as more independent bookstores.

Amazon was still the largest channel for book sales, with $11.3 billion in sales.

“This year’s report reflects a healthy and agile publishing industry,” commented Syreeta Swann, chief operating officer of AAP in a statement. She pointed to the resilience of print even as digital formats continue to grow.

Things can change and there’s just no doubt it’s hard to concentrate to read when it feels like we’re teetering on the brink of climate, social and political collapse with a strong tailwind, but the message to writers seems to be:

Write your asses off. There’s a readership out there.

Here’s my CrimeReads piece from a while back about getting into the publishing industry, with comments from some absolutely first-rate writers:

How Some Crime Writers Are Finding a New Path to Publishing

Going viral, social media, dystopia and books

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I went viral on social media – two different social media, with two different posts – over the Fourth of July weekend.

(This is not a pat myself on the back post. I think there’s something interesting that’s happened here, beyond the viral-ness.)

The first post that went viral is the one above. On Saturday, I was in the Barnes & Noble bookstore near me and took a picture of the first table inside the door. If you can’t tell from the picture, it’s a display marked “Dystopian Vibes” and offers books including “1984,” “Animal Farm” and the works of Margaret Atwood and Octavia E. Butler.

I thought I’d snap a picture and post it and thank Barnes & Noble for putting these books out there so prominently. Yes, that placement encourages sales. Yes, it’s ultimately a big corporation trying to move copies of books. But it’s something.

I thought the post might get some traffic, but I never get a lot of engagement, even with 3,000 Bluesky followers.

By Sunday afternoon, this was the response:

380 accounts reposted my post, which got 2,700 likes.

This is a multiple of thousands the reaction I was expecting. I had to mute notifications on the post.

That wasn’t all, though.

I saw a bitterly amusing meme on a friend’s Facebook account – there was no indication on the account who originally posted it – and I posted it on various social media, including Instagram, which shares posts to the social media app Threads (which I don’t use much).

Here’s the post, and the reaction:

Believe me when I tell you, I usually don’t get 600 likes on Threads, a social media I barely use.

So what’s the upshot to all this, besides a little more engagement and traffic to the companies that own Bluesky and Threads, the latter the detested Meta? (The even more detested Twitter turned up with very little notice of either post, by the way.)

The upshot, it seems to me, is that there’s a lot of interest and engagement in posts about our currently untenable, dangerous and yes, dystopian path.

That’s a good thing, that people are engaging in posts critical or even acknowledging the path this country is on.

And, as a bonus, the Bluesky post shows a ton of engagement about books that forecast, define and address our society.

There’s nothing more encouraging than the realization that people are engaging with literature that calls to light our current peril.

So maybe a small percentage of the frogs in this slowly boiling pot of water are aware they’re in a slowly boiling pot of water. I hope.

The pleasure of finding your book for sale – especially unexpected places

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I’m not sure I remember the exact details, but when my first true crime book, co-authored with my longtime writing partner Douglas Walker, came out in 2016, it was pretty thrilling to see the book for sale in bookstores, drug stores, gift shops and online.

It’s one thing to have a book out there and to sell it and sign it, but realizing our publisher, History Press, had actually gotten the first book, “Wicked Muncie,” in stores and online sites, was pretty amazing. History Press kicks all kinds of ass in getting books in stores, by the way. All four of our true crime books found a good home with them.

Another highlight was finding our books offered by libraries, which are very nearly my favorite places on the planet. A while back, I realized our third true crime book, “The Westside Park Murders,” was available through the Chicago Public Library. I’m still boggled over that.

So it’s been fun, with THAT OCTOBER, my new 1984-set high school crime novel, finding the book on all kinds of bookselling sites. I wasn’t certain if I would have to take steps to ensure this because THAT OCTOBER is self-published.

But I didn’t have to. At some point recently I was asking the folks at Ingram Spark, the venue I used to publish the book, if they could tell me when it would be available for pre-order. They responded and noted that it already was available and showed me where Amazon was selling it.

Since that time, I’ve been excited to see that not only Amazon, a site I have qualms about, but Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Powell’s Books and Waterstones, the famous Brit seller of books, all offer it (for pre-order right now, as publication date is June 1).

So I’ve been on social media, posting links to most of those booksellers and screenshots. It was as especially exciting to see that Powell’s, a bookseller I’ve visited in Portland, Oregon, and have done business with online, offered it.

Oddest place I’ve found the book for sale so far: Saxo, where the book is available for about 259 Danish Krone.

It’s silly, I know, to be so excited about this, but I didn’t think it would ever happen.

Next I’ll be telling you how excited I am to find THAT OCTOBER for sale at Half Price Books or McKay’s.