Nine months after signing with St. Martin's, the first book in the series, Switched, comes out today in new print and ebook editions containing "extended scenes and bonus content" according to the press materials, which for this first part consists of a new short story entitled "The Vittra Attacks." The print edition is getting a first printing of 250,000, which is, I think, frankly overzealous for a book that almost everyone interested in already owns. The remaining books in the series are due on Feb. 28 and April 24, with a Hollywood movie in the works (which means at least a year away). Her first new book for St. Martin's - Wake, part one of the 4-book Watersong series - is set for release on August 21st, and is about as guaranteed a bestseller as there could ever be. Expect to see a first printing in the millions on advance orders alone.
I only mention this as news due to Hocking's origins as a self-pubbed author and the subsequent whirlwind of publicity her success has caused. I thought it might be interesting to follow up on what has happened since. As you can see from the picture above the cover has received an update - the sickly green covers of the previous editions were frankly lame, and these new romance-looking ones will appeal more to the younger female audience that made Twilight such a success. Her website has also received a professional polish, and according to the article she's being prepped for an "international media blitz," so expect to be seeing a lot of her on talk shows in the near future.
The books are being released at $8.99 for both print and ebook versions (the ebook was $2.99 before, and originally only .99 cents as I recall), and currently list on Amazon's rankings at 14,000 and 12,000 respectively (as of noon Eastern Time). That means she's only sold about 10-15 copies of each edition so far today, give or take (from personal experience I can tell you that ten copies in a day will put you at about 10-13,000, depending on how many other books are selling at the same time - right now I'm at 23,000 having sold ten books in two days). So not a great rush to read the new "bonus" short story going on so far. Of course, almost everyone who's interested in this genre has already bought the book, so one bonus chapter won't likely entice very many to spend three times as much as they did for the entire story in the first place.
UPDATE: Later That Same Evening...
Switched is currently #18 in print and #786 in ebooks, so that goes to show you how little I know. A lot can change in a day.
SECOND UPDATE: Sometime Around Noon the Next Day...
After its initial surge last night sales of Switched have slackened off somewhat, dropping it to #615 in print and #1228 in ebooks. Meanwhile, my book continues to sell steadily in moderate quantities, bringing me to #16,997 in ebooks, which isn't bad considering I only have the one title published, but leaves a lot of room for growth.
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