Bitter Seeds on io9! And a Reader Photo, and a Strange Encounter.

Well, it’s launch day + 1 for Bitter Seeds, and I’m still recovering from the excitement and terror of yesterday.  Thank you to everybody who has spread the word– I love you all.  I’m also deeply grateful to everybody who has expressed interest in my lonely little novel.  I’m touched and moved by your kindness and generosity.  I can only hope my novel proves worthy of your enthusiasm.

I’ve just discovered that io9, uber-clearinghouse of all things awesome and science-fictional, has included Bitter Seeds in its roundup of noteworthy April book releases!  Thanks, io9!

I’ve posted a review and roundup of launch-day news below the cut, and the first photograph of Bitter Seeds in the wild.

We’ve seen a huge increase in traffic thanks to Cory Doctorow‘s review up at Boing Boing and the Big Idea column over at John Scalzi‘s webhome.  (Thanks very much to Cory and John for their kindness.)

The increase in traffic means that a lot of people are playing Chronicle of Sorrows. And if I’m reading Google Analytics correctly, some of them are making major progress.  Keep up the good work, folks!  (But there’s still time to join in the fun.  If you’d like to play along, I’ve posted about the game here, here, and here.)

My book giveaway over at Goodreads had 1067 entrants in one week.  Holy macaroni.  A signed copy of Bitter Seeds will be in the mail to the lucky winner by the end of the week.

I received this photograph, which was taken at a Barnes & Noble store in Salt Lake City, Utah:

I think it looks right purty there on the shelf.  Don’t you?  If you happen to see my book in a store, my offer still stands– I’ll sign a copy of the book for you in exchange for a photo.  (But if I get inundated with photos, I’ll sign the first few copies.  If I only get two or three photos, I’ll sign two or three copies.  See my previous post about me being a weasel.)

And, finally, my good friend Mark Lopez sends this report from New Jersey:

Something funny happened to me today. Today is Mary’s birthday so I was going to take her out for lunch. I was waiting for her in the parking lot of the library. I was reading Bitter Seeds while I was waiting for her to come out. There I was reading about Super Human Nazis in Spain when I happened to look up and standing not 30 feet from my car was a NAZI! I shit you not, he was dressed in black pants, black high top leather boots, a khaki shirt with a leather pistol belt across his chest and he was wearing a Nazi party arm band. He looked exactly like a Brown Shirt! AND on his head he wore a bright red Fez! What are the chances of that happening? tell me. I thought I was hallucinating. Come to find out he was just some crazy guy who was attendind an AA meeting.  Mary said he always dresses like that.

A grateful tip of my cranial electrodes to Wesley Wright for the photograph.