POSTED BY Jessica Redland | Oct 15, 2017 |
It’s two weeks since the launch of Charlee and the Chocolate Shop, my sixth book and my first ever Christmas novel. A couple of days after that, I released Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes.
Charlee and the Chocolate Shop is a short novel set across two Christmases. We return to Whitsborough Bay, but with a new cast of characters again, just like for Bear With Me. A couple of the characters from previous books do put in appearances so readers who are familiar with my other books will recognise them, and new readers won’t need to know who they are.
Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes is also a short novel and is set purely in December so it’s very, very Christmassy. Lovely!
I’ve had a pretty tough year, sales-wise, so I was conscious that there was a lot of pressure on Charlee and Carly to perform. With gorgeous covers like those, and a subject like Christmas, I hoped they’d bring me out of my September Sales Slump.
The good news is that I’ve been selling copies of both novels every day and hopefully the small numbers will increase as we get closer to Christmas. Although I’ve been living with Christmas in my head for the past couple of months, I usually only turn my thoughts to Christmas after Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night so I’m excited about what might happen as we reach November.
In the meantime, I’ve been thrilled to see both books reach the top spot in one of the smaller categories on Amazon. Carly made it first, then Charlee knocked her off the top spot last night, but Carly was having none of it and stole the bestseller tag back this morning! I wasn’t anticipating a fight but I’m quite happy to watch them doing battle because, a month ago, I thought I’d never ever see one of those little orange tags on any of my books.
Thanks to anyone who has downloaded or borrowed either of these books. You’re Christmas stars!
Jessica xx
