999

First is on the threshold of a thousand ratings on Amazon. I was going to wait until that milestone, but then I thought, hey, hitting 999 is pretty cool and makes for a nice blog post title. In addition to that monumental threshold where the odometer rolls over to 1000, the book still has a 4.4 rating. When I published First in October 2023, I hoped a good number of people would read it, but I honestly had no idea how to get it into so many hands. Of course, 999 is a portion of the overall readers since many people don’t leave ratings (for shame!) and I’m grateful for every person who spent time with my book. Through ads and contests and the Amazon algorithms, First has found its audience and I hope it finds even more in the years ahead. This was my first “real” book after self-publishing three novels a decade earlier that were basically for friends and family to read. It took some work and money and a whole lot of time, but First has done better than I would’ve thought. And we’re not done yet.