If you have recently purchased one or two copies of my novel “Soapstone” from anyone other than Amazon.com, I have a favor to ask.

I recently signed up for the “expanded distribution” channel from CreateSpace, my publish-on-demand provider. This means that my book is now available from outlets and sources where it was not previously available.

My most recent sales reports show that I’ve sold a couple of copies through expanded distribution, for the first time. If you bought one of them, please drop me a line or leave a comment below (anonymous is fine if you prefer) to let me know where, specifically, you bought it. All I’m looking for is the name of a web site or store.

Thanks!

Because of the new expanded distribution offered by CreateSpace, my novel is now available in more places, such as the Barnes & Noble web site, where — if you’re a member of their loyalty program — you can get it for less than what I would sell it to you for.

Well, I whined a couple of weeks ago about not having sold any novels in a while, and since that time I’ve sold two. I’m not sure whether it was the whining or whether it was my post on the health care Bible study a day later, which was linked to and resulted in a spike in visitors. Or maybe it’s just coincidence.

I went to an economic outlook conference today in Murfreesboro. Most of the speakers talked about the economy, but at one point they gave out an award to an elderly businessman and he gave an entertaining but much-longer-than-scheduled acceptance speech. It turns out that at one point, H. Jackson Brown was doing the advertising for the award winner’s car dealership in East Tennessee. That led to the award winner telling the story of how Brown ended up, almost by accident, self-publishing, and then selling, “Life’s Little Instruction Book.” It made me feel a little inadequate, and a little guilty, at my offering and at how little I’ve done to promote it.

Why is it everyone who comes to Africa has to write a book about it? One silly beggar even dedicated his to me! Never came back or I’d have shot him in the pants!
– Johnson (played by Torin Thatcher) in “The Snows of Kilamanjaro”

I’d been meaning to post something about the novel for several days now, and when I heard that line on TCM just now it reminded me.

A couple of weeks ago, when I spoke to my nephew’s class, the teacher had suggested I talk a little about the fact I’d written a book. I looked for a nice clean copy to take with me as a Visual Aid, but I couldn’t find the three or four nice copies I had in the apartment, so I ended up having to take one of my weatherbeaten proofs, with the covers all curled up.

I found the books over the weekend; they were right out in the open, in a place I thought I had looked. I don’t know how I missed them.

I haven’t sold any copies, online or in person, for a while now. Now that the trip is over with, I need to figure out some way to get things started again, if that’s possible. Perhaps it’s not; perhaps the novel has run its course. But I keep thinking there’s something else I should be doing.

I tried not to push the novel on my mission trip teammates, though one or two of them heard about it and read it anyway. There was one who asked me about it several times during the week and I was sure he would buy one once we got back to the states; he hasn’t, and I think it would be inappropriate of me to remind him too directly. Maybe I can work it into the conversation next time I see him.

Fortunately, none of the three people to whom I have dedicated my novel has shot me in the pants. Not that I haven’t given them reason from time to time ….

When we were all in the car headed to Nashville Friday night for our symphony concert wrapup meeting, Dawn Holley asked me how the novel was going.

It isn’t, actually. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve sold a copy in person, and longer than that since I’ve sold one online.

My North Carolina brother wants me to try to market it to a traditional publisher, but I just haven’t had time to fool with that — or to do anything more aggressive about marketing the self-published version.

I do get occasional nice comments from people who bought the thing early on and didn’t read it until later. Of course, you never know how seriously to take nice comments.