How to F^&*king Buy My F#$king Books

An update on shipping woes

I joined Threads a while back and there was already some other James Fell there so I went with jamesfellauthor. And because of that Threads decided to show me the threads of a bunch of other authors, mostly romantasy writers. And what they frequently talk about is how to (and how not to) sell books. One of the things often discussed, that I agree with, is to not use “pity marketing.” Pity marketing is “My sales are low woe is me won’t someone please buy my books here is the link.”

Would you want to buy that book? If no one is buying it, that’s a clue.

Anyfuckingway, I am seeking your pity for logistical reasons. So many motherfuckers bought Volume I of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down that there was a massive backlog of orders and Amazon cannot make up its mind about delivery dates.

PLEASE NOTE: This is only about Volume 1. Volume 2 is self-published print on demand and if you order that one it will arrive muy rapido.

Let’s talk about Amazon USA first. I can see via my affiliate dashboard (more on that in a moment) that there are lots of orders from last month that still haven’t shipped. I don’t know why this is the case, because my publisher did TWO very large print runs, completed on Dec 1 and Dec 8, and Amazon took possession of a bunch of them, but they still don’t seem to have fulfilled many of the back orders, and the delivery date keeps changing where now it says fucking January. I talked to my publisher and basically nothing can be done because it’s like trying to talk to someone at Facebook. Meaning: there is no actual human to talk to. That being said, when it comes to these kind of situations I was told they tend to under promise and over deliver. And I have had many people tell me they ordered the book recently and they said yeah you’ll get it in five weeks and it arrived in under a week.

So, if you want to take a chance that it will arrive in time via Amazon USA, please use this link: https://amzn.to/41uUvg4.

I ask you to use that link because it’s the aforementioned “affiliate” link that I get extra money from. I especially get extra money if you not only buy my book but buy a bunch of other shit at the same time. To quote from the movie They Live: CONSUME.

If you ordered the thing over a month ago and it still hasn’t arrived, well, I don’t want to tell you to cancel that order, but maybe you want to not uncancel it. Heh. And then you could reorder it from Amazon and that might work, OR you could go to Barnes & Noble who says it ships in 1-2 days. Here is that link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/on-this-day-in-history-sh-t-went-down-james-fell/1138706702.

If you haven’t ordered it yet at all, then B&N might be your best bet. There is also Books A Million saying it will get there before Christmas: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593724088

If you’re in Canada, it seems you’re pretty much fucked. I know, right?

Amazon Canada isn’t even saying you can order it from them right now. It’s all that “get it for a jacked up price from a third party” kinda shit, and the dates are all arriving in January too. I’m hoping that will change any day, but who knows? Indigo is also saying they are out of stock, but the odd physical store has a copy or two. You can search using your postal code here: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/on-this-day-in-history-sht-went-down/08d8f70b-9a13-3190-b07a-673e7eb8e7b5.html.

As I said about Volume 2, however, is that you CAN order that and it should definitely will arrive before Christmas. This is the affiliate links for V2 for Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3LTZst0.

For an author this is one of those “nice problem to have” kinda things. Except it definitely has hurt sales of Volume 1 because people want to give it as a gift and the stated shipping dates are giving them pause. My advice is to give them a copy of Volume 2 (which is also selling like a mofo), but also order Volume 1 and truthfully say hey it’s Sofa King popular that it’s back ordered but it will arrive soon and you’ll get it then. Since I was talking about romantasy earlier, unlike Sarah J Maas books, you don’t have to read mine in order.

End of pity marketing rant.