There’s this list that goes out to all the independent book stores…and there’s a boat-load of them! It used to be called Book Sense, but now its new name is Indie Next Pick. And in October, people like Ian Rankin, Dennis Lehane ( Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) and Kent Krueger are listed. The small collection of books are recommended as ‘must carry’ books for the month. If you carry these books, you’ll be all set the fall and winter.

Stuff Dreams Are Made Of made the list. Pretty cool, eh?

And, SDAMO made the Poisoned Pen catalog of books for October. ( PP is Judy’s publisher.)

I tell you gentle readers this, not to softly boast….no. To loudly boast. I mean, if I can’t get excited on my own blog day…you know?

Six, seven, eight months we write and have no idea if anyone is ever going to read the finished piece. We wonder if we’re ever going to finish the piece. We wonder if anyone will like it, dislike it, or even care. We wonder if we’ll care. It’s terrible. It doesn’t make any sense and then we have to go back and fix it and re-fix it again and again…and then the publisher says “STOP”. If you don’t turn it in we’ll take your advance away.

So we turn in the finished manuscript. And another year goes by. Yes…a year. And your publisher likes it, and a couple of proof readers, and your agent…but you still don’t know. And finally the book is released.

And you make the Indie Next Pick List. Is it the NY Times? No. Is it USA Today? No. But it’s the Indie Next Pick list, and that helps sell a lot of books. So I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I’ll take it!