While I’ve already marked the one-year anniversary of this website back in March, today marks the one-year anniversary that my book Danger Peak has been available for purchase. I actually didn’t even realize it was available for sale this day last year when it happened. I didn’t find out it was on Amazon until almost a week later because my editor went on vacation that week and forgot to tell me the book was available. (“Damn you, Wheatmark!” he says in jest.) So I’ll never know how well the book did in its crucial first week of release. I realize it wasn’t a bestseller, but it’d be nice to know what the rank was. Oh well. Maybe next book.
Anniversaries and birthdays are a time to take stock and look back, something I’m somewhat expert on doing. (Once more with feeling: I wrote a novel that takes place in the 1980s.) So for this blog, I’m going to take a hard, honest look at the book’s success (and lack thereof). First, the good stuff. In the past year, Danger Peak:
- Won The 2022 Firebird Book Award in the category of Magical Realism (its first award)
- Won The Fall 2022 BookFest Award in the category of Young Adult Action and Adventure (probably its most prestigious award)
- Won The September 2022 Literary Titan Gold Book Award
- Was an Honorable Mention in both The 2022 New York and Hollywood Book Festivals
- Was a finalist in the 2022 American Fiction Awards in the category of Inspirational
- Was added to the permanent collections of several libraries
- Was featured in an electronic billboard in Times Square
- Received almost unanimously positive reviews from professional critics, including some heavy hitters like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews
- Was the subject of several interviews with yours truly, including the Back to the ‘80s radio show, The Books That Make You literary podcast, and a full-paged interview with Loyola Magazine (ironic, given the fact the school’s publishing arm rejected my manuscript the year before, but I’m certain the magazine didn’t know that)
That’s the critical reception of my book. The commercial reception, unfortunately, is a different story. At several points, Danger Peak was in the Top 13 books in the popular category of Coming-of-Age fiction, but those times were during my free Kindle promotions, so I didn’t receive a single penny.
Not counting free days, the highest ranking the book reached on Amazon since I’ve been monitoring it was in the Top 200. That’s impressive considering there are almost 33 million books on Amazon right now, but it’s slightly less so when you realize the category Danger Peak dominated was in something called “Friendship Fiction,” a genre I’d never heard of before. It’s possible my book will become a so-called “cult classic” in the ensuing years, but honestly, I don’t want to wait that long, not to mention I don’t know how much longer I’ve got. Not to say that I’m dying of a deadly disease, but honestly, we never know how much time we’ve got left on this planet. If you read my book, you’ll understand that this is something I know from personal experience.
So what does this mean? Overall, I’d say Danger Peak was a critical success but not a commercial one. When I was a kid, I remember liking certain T.V. shows and movies that were more popular with the critics than audiences—and vice versa. (I didn’t like T.V. shows and movies that most people liked but the critics hated.) For example, I never got into the Police Academy or Revenge of the Nerds movies (despite my nerdy appearance), but boy, judging by the mind-boggling amount of sequels those series spawned, were those “films” ever popular with the average American Joe! Did I trap myself by writing something that would only appeal to “the elites”? I don’t think so. My book isn’t academic or even remotely complex to grasp. Also, the book is mostly aimed at kids. (The subtitle is “A Kid Adventure.”) I’ve even had a few of these kids, presumably the target audience for this middle-grade/young adult book, tell me how much they love it, despite being set decades before they were even born.
I remember thinking, even right before I started writing Danger Peak, that I’d rather write a good book I’d be proud of that doesn’t do very well with the public than a terrible book that sells a million copies—y’know, something a Kardashian would write. While I still believe that today, I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t hurt that the book didn’t do better with the public. I put a lot, and I mean a LOT, of time and energy into this thing, and so far, I’ve spent about the same amount of money in marketing Danger Peak as the money I’ve received in royalties. This was not a completely surprising development. When I was researching how to write and market a novel by reading half a dozen books on the subject, one of them warned the reader (I’m paraphrasing from memory here): “If you’re going into writing to make money, just quit now. Well over 90 percent of writers don’t make money their first few years because they still have to develop a name for themselves and find their audience.” This is similar to the old adage that most businesses fail (or at least don’t turn a profit) in their first year of existence. Also, the book noted that most writers don’t make a living by their writing; they have a job on the side. For me, that side-time hustle is editing.
As far as my little magnum opus goes, I’d say my mission is half accomplished. The professional critics liked it, as well as almost every single person who’s read it, based off my conversations with people and the nonprofessional reviews from Amazon and Goodreads. Let’s put it this way: if you actually took the time to read my book, chances are, you liked it.
I remember seeing an interview last year with X-Files actor David Duchovny promoting his new novella. He told the story of when he asked his agent how his book performed the first week it was released, and the agent enthusiastically replied, “It did great! It sold five-thousand copies!” Clearly downhearted by that news, Duchovny responded, “Five-thousand? I think I bought most of those!” My point is this: If the world-famous actor David Duchovny is having trouble selling his books, what chance does no-name me have?
So maybe this isn’t just my problem; it’s a universal one currently being tackled by struggling writers the world over. I alluded to this in my Loyola Magazine interview, but fewer and fewer people are reading these days with the endless streaming options out there. (As Bill Maher put it, “People don’t read anymore; they scroll.”) When I was growing up, I had exactly seven T.V. channels (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, PBS, and whatever Channels 9 and 11 were) and obviously no Internet. Now there are literally hundreds of T.V. channels and streaming sites, and that’s not even including the millions (at this point, billions?) of videos on YouTube. And now we have AI that can write a novel in mere minutes, they say. (I thought my writing my second novel in three months was fast.)
The oversaturated media landscape we live in is daunting and certainly makes a typical writer want to throw out their typewriter (do people besides Tom Hanks still use those?) or computer and just surrender. I’m going to keep writing, though—if nothing else because I enjoy it. After all, like the book that warned me not to get into writing for the money also mentioned (again, this is from memory): “Writers write because they love to write. Writers write because they have to.”
Amen.
MTP
P.S.: The Kindle version of Danger Peak will be available for FREE this Saturday, June 17th for one day only. (Looks like I buried the lede again.) The Kindle version is available here:
P.P.S.: Danger Peak is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble:
Michael Thomas Perone 