BookTok Success 11 Years After Publication
This past winter, 11 years after my debut novel Stone Maidens was published, it was ranked on Amazon.com somewhere around 1,600 in book sales. That was before my daughter Marguerite decided to take a short video of me at my writing desk on February 7, which she then posted on TikTok. The next day, that single 15-second video had been viewed 4 million times. By the second day, it had been viewed a total of 16 million times. By the third day, it had been viewed nearly 48 million times.
As a result, Stone Maidens became the #1 best-selling book on Amazon.com. In a month’s time, it sold over 100,000 copies. I was stunned. I felt like I’d won the lottery. It was just incredible. I was very happy. I didn’t understand or know anything about TikTok. And I was overjoyed reading all the positive comments posted by BookTok readers of Stone Maidens.
My daughter Marguerite was inspired to make the original short video of me and post it on TikTok because she was so impressed with my positive attitude forging ahead, writing a sequel Maidens of the Cave, even though Stone Maidens was no longer on anyone’s radar. She realized then how much writing itself meant to me, regardless of success. I was raised by my grandmother who instilled in me the importance of spending a part of each day reading books, out of which grew my own interest in writing stories at an early age. The process of writing a book and developing characters teaches me more about myself. My lead character Christine Prusik springboards me into another dimension governed by her intrigues, intuition, and dynamism.
Stone Maidens and Maidens of the Cave explore psychological forces and the nature of our makeup as individuals, whether the killer, a victim, or, in the case of the forensic scientist, Christine Prusik, who solves the case. In her pursuit, Prusik often shows a raw edginess in conversations with her bosses and associates, although she is a dedicated, honest, law officer who relentlessly pursues the case. I was raised by my grandmother, an intelligent, artistic strong-minded woman, who no doubt had a significant influence in my selection of a woman protagonist for Stone Maidens. It is my belief that women are more intelligent and have better intuition than men.
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Even though Stone Maidens didn’t immediately take off, I couldn’t shake my intrigue with our fearless heroine Christine Prusik. Story threads started to form, and soon developed into another case that Christine Prusik would not let go, risking suspension and dismissal by her superiors, while putting her own life at mortal risk.
When the bodies of young women start appearing in the caves of Indiana and Illinois, FBI Special Agent Christine Prusik immediately jumps into action. Her Chicago field office is undergoing a reorganization and the boys’ club at the top seem more interested in getting all the paperwork in order than solving the murders. Christine attends the postmortem exams and discovers that all the bodies have the same mysterious pin-sized bruise on the backs of their necks. She realizes she’ll have to confront her own inner demons to find the killer.
Without my daughter’s understanding of TikTok and her making the short videos that she’s posted I would never have known this phenomenal success. I really had no idea what she meant at the time when she told me she was posting on social media about me. I’m so very grateful to her and know how much I mean to her. I am also so grateful to the tens of thousands of TikTok and BookTok readers who have embraced me and bought my book, Stone Maidens, and posted such wonderful comments. The power of connecting with my readers through TikTok and BookTok is nothing short of amazing!
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