Let's talk behind-the-scenes publishing. I want to break down everything I can about NYXIA. My hope is that a full look at one person's publishing experience can help you navigate your own one day. 🧵 The first bit of context: Nyxia was the 4th book I attempted to get published. I'd tried with two full-length novels and a novella. At that point, I had already stacked up about 130 rejections from agents. This is normal! Almost all of us get rejected!

(Except my friend Keith)

Ok. This tweet went viral 36 hours ago, and is starting to wind down. Let's ask the question everyone really wants to know: does a viral tweet sell books. A thread.

https://twitter.com/Scott_Thought/status/1361295552273670144

First, the relevant stats. That tweet has 133k likes. It registered 5.2 million impressions (any time any one, for even a second, passed by the tweet). It has 550k engagements (people interacting with the tweet) and resulted in 16k profile clicks. That's... good.

Let's talk about the three rings of antagonists and how you can use them to stir conflict up for your protagonist. First ring: the immediate threat. These are, most often, your low-level bad guys. The kid in class who ends up as the MC's rival. The professor who's standing in the way of them graduating. Draco Malfoy in books 1-5.

This week I found out that over the past year, Nyxia is the number one selling children's book at my local store, @quailridgebooks. It's a testament, I think, to the importance of independent book shops. Why have we moved so many books? Quail Ridge knows how to arrange a great school visit. Their booksellers know books and hand-sell them to the people they know will love them. Something no Amazon algorithm could ever do.