While not necessarily at the extremes, these are very much one of the smaller (43 reviews in 2013) and one of the larger (75 reviews in 2012) of the books that will be showing up in the series. Again, I've been churning out these reviews for 12 years, so there are quite a lot more to go, and the 2012 book is the first I've gotten to (the last of seven) of those years where I was reading and reviewing at least 73 books a year (with the most being 79). The first two years I was doing this, '04-'05, will probably be combined into one volume, since the total for those two years is less than that of the next-lowest year, 2014.
Of course, I've had such bad luck with my publications, that it's very hard for me to muster up any actual enthusiasm for these books as they come out (although I quite enjoy the process of making them, and think the printed volumes look great). While I certainly anticipate there being more of a market for the book review books than there is for the poetry (after all, these would make great "bathroom reading" books, with each review taking up 1-5 pages!), I am not holding my breath for massive sales to come rolling in, largely on the factor that all the material in these books is free on the web ... heck, you've been reading them all along right here!
However, I'm hoping to be able to push the concept that folks can "get conversant with" a whole bunch of books by buying my review collections, with a lot less effort than actually reading all the covered books. I know that's a pretty feeble selling point, but Readers Digest was a huge periodical based on a not-too-different concept. I'm trying to figure out a good way to package that idea in a Facebook-ad-ready format, and throw a few bucks in that direction. This, too, seems pretty iffy to me, but I've seen so many things singing the praises of FB advertising, and that it's "so easy" to "stick one's toe in" with just a few bucks, that I feel like I'm going to have to give it a shot. However, my experiences with advertising my wares over the past 20-25 years don't leave me in a psychological state to be particularly enthusiastic about that either, as I've spent a lot of money on nearly zero return over and over and over again, and I'm hardly in a position to support any sort of an ad program that's not at least making enough back that I'm breaking even. Arrrrgh ... FML (as the kids say these days).
Anyway, if you click on the covers, you'll be whisked off to the individual pages over on the Eschaton site for each ... they're also available, of course, over on Amazon, but, if one was to order some, I do get a significantly larger cut from sales made directly over on CreateSpace (where the "buy now" links on my site, naturally enough, point off to).
