@TheKaufmann just finished Die and Stay Dead! Loved it! Need the next installment of Phil and Trent do The Big Apple…or what’s left of it.
— Scott McMillan (@smcmillan009) May 2, 2015
I received this tweet tonight and it absolutely made my day. I love hearing from readers, especially when they’ve enjoyed something I wrote. (You’d think readers wouldn’t bother contacting me to say they didn’t like something I wrote, but…you’d be surprised.) Every once in a while I receive these lovely missives from readers telling me how much they enjoy the Trent series and how much they’re looking forward to the third volume. And every time I have to tell them, as I did Mr. McMillan, this sad news:
There will not be a third volume unless the first two volumes — Dying Is My Business and Die and Stay Dead — sell a whole lot better than they have been.
I don’t know why they’re not selling better. The reviews have been almost unanimously raves. I’ve promoted the hell out of them on book blogs, websites, convention panels, readings, signings, and podcasts. They just didn’t catch an audience, for some reason. There’s no way of knowing why a book doesn’t take off. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
But here’s the deal. If you want to see the final volume of the Trent trilogy, or even see it go beyond three books to something bigger, you have to help me get the word out. If you liked the first two, tell all your friends. Tell everyone you know who likes the same kind of books as you, your co-workers, your friends at the gym, the other parents in your children’s classes, your book club, the people who follow and friend you on social media, everybody. Leave reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, anywhere you’re comfortable doing so. Selling more copies of the first two is the only way the third book is going to happen, and I need your help to do that. In other words, if you want it to happen you have to help make it happen — and the best way to do that is by spreading the word!
