Tuskers II / Rule of Vampire. 2nd books.

The second books in a longer story arc.

Here's the thing.  I've always thought a book should stand on its own.  That you should be able to read any book in a series and get a complete story, or at least a satisfying climax.

I thought Rule of Vampire worked very well as a book.  In fact, in some ways, I've felt it was my most complete book, despite being the middle of a trilogy.  I liked it a lot.

So it was interesting when Books of the Dead decided to discount Rule of Vampire and Blood of Gold to "Free" for a few months, while putting Death of an Immortal to .99.

I expected that would help sales on Death of an Immortal.  I don't know that it did, much.  But at least over on Barnes and Noble, it pushed Rule of Vampire into the top 2% of the 35K horror novels.  Even when it went to .99, it held that position, followed a couple hundred slots later by Blood of Gold. Not that these are meaningful sales in terms of money.  For instance, in one short burst I sold 170 copies of Led to the Slaughter at the .99 cent rate, which amounted to almost nothing in royalties.  On the other hand, it pushed the book up into higher sales for the next few months.

So basically, free is free.  Got that.

But also, once you've staked out a position on the lists, it appears that the price can fluctuate a little and you can hold that position.

I still think it's kind of weird that everyone who grabbed Rule of Vampire and  Blood of Gold while they were free didn't go ahead and spring for Death of an Immortal for all of .99.  Free is free, I guess.

All this is to get to a roundabout way of talking about Tuskers II.

I like the straightforwardness of Tuskers I so much, I wanted to do the same thing with Tuskers II.  At the same time, I wanted to ramp up the events of II, especially at the end, to make this a worthy followup, but also to make it a stand alone book.

So I'm hoping people will pick it up even if they haven't read Tuskers I yet.  Probably won't happen that way.  I know from the store that people aren't terribly flexible about that.  I read mysteries out of order, for instance, and have no problems with it.  But other people insist on reading them in order.

I was hoping I left enough of an intriguing twist with Tuskers I that people who read it would hurry to read #2, but I wonder if too much time has passed.  Readers may have liked Tuskers I, but that doesn't meant they'll leap to buy #2.

I think what may happen is -- anyone who reads Tuskers I from now on will immediately turn to #2.  And that will take some time to show an effect.