seanan_mcguire's newest book, Discount Armageddon, is due to hit the streets on March 6. First-week sales are the only numbers counted toward best-seller status, and are apparently the numbers publishers look at when deciding whether to buy more books in a series.
Pre-orders through online retailers don't count toward first-week numbers, only copies purchased in and from bricks-and-mortar stores.
Two of the online retailers, for reasons known only to themselves, are ignoring the release dates and shipping pre-ordered copies of Discount Armageddon. This is bad, because it encourages people to buy the books early and from said electronic retailers. Thus, the first-week numbers go down.
To compound their bad behavior, one of the online retailers is shipping physical books early and holding the electronic version until the official street date. This is awful, because people who have to "wait" for their e-copy have decided that this is all Seanan's fault, and therefore she should be subjected to torrents of abuse and threats in her email.
Seanan's publisher is trying to make the online retailers CUT IT THE FUCK OUT, DAMMIT, STREET DATES ARE THERE FOR A REASON, but you know the bit about barn doors and horses.
Please: if you have any interest at all in the InCryptid series, starting with Discount Armageddon, please wait. Buy your copy between March 6 and March 12, from a bricks-and-mortar retailer if you possibly can. I realize that for some of you that's not possible; in that case, please consider ordering online from Borderlands Books, which will, if I understand correctly, sell you a *signed* copy sold during that all-important first week.
If you're not yet interested in the series, go to http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/tag/incryptid and start reading the entries labeled, "From A to Z in the InCryptid Alphabet". Or do a websearch on "Aeslin mice". *grin*
CHEESE AND CAKE!