I suspect the other thread was created to draw attention to the news, for people who may not be reading this thread. In order to assist with this, I'll leave the redirect up for three days instead of the usual one. That way, for the next three days, people can still see the thread title in the thread listing, but clicking on it will bring them into this thread to read the messages.
I appreciate the redirect, and you landed exactly on the reason — I don't look at ongoing threads expecting to find announcements, and I expect that's a common dynamic. I looked first to see if I could change the thread title to give it a "1/12/23 Update" prefix — I'm able to do that on some other services, but couldn't find it here.
I guess I could have tried to stealth-market it — start a thread about maps in novels, with the news in the first post — but I figured that would get a bit transparent, especially after the second or third attempt!
The problem these days — and this is the authors' problem,
not yours — is we're in a bookselling world where the whole game is preorders. Barnes & Noble's new ownership has cut way back on paid display spaces and guaranteed minimum orders; instead, what gets to appear face-front, on the endcaps, and on tables is based on locked-in preorders, plus the interests of the staffs. By the time a book comes out, it's too late for marketing to have much effect. So we need fans who intend to buy announced books to send that message, if they're in a position to.
This explains why on the other services you've probably lately seen me and my fellow authors banging the drum more often, making news — and Twitter and Facebook threads — of whatever we can come up with before books are released. (David's great at it — much better with Photoshop than I am!) A lot of the things I used to do the week of release I'm pushing earlier and earlier. We're 40 days out from this one — ten years ago I would have waited until the Friday before!
Again,
not your problem — and I understand the reason for the rules. No offense taken, I swear! I would just advise everyone that if you're seeing authors posting a lot in a thread about a book that's not out yet, it may be worth checking for updates. I can't guarantee we'll be announcing maps or variant covers or special editions, but we'll sure be trying to make those things happen!
