Making NPR's list for best crime and mystery novels for 2008

This is all very surreal. As of last week I was mostly flying under the radar with Small Crimes. I had gotten some great reviews in the London papers and trades, as well as some very enthusiastic reviews on line with the incredibly generous Ed Gorman leading the charge, but outside of an early review from The Lansing State Journal, it looked like that the US papers were going to ignore the book. Then late last week stuff started to happen: Small Crimes made IMBA's bestseller list, Sunday it received a rave review in the Washington Post, written by Maureen Corrigan, and now this.

There's so much luck involved in this business. There are so many books out there, and most authors are stuck with the same dilemma, how do you get your book noticed, and in today's world, even reviewed? I remember reading over the summer how a book that had sold I think less than a hundred copies was picked up by Richard + Judy's book club, which meant it was now going to sell over a couple of hundred thousand copies. Earlier on my blog I wrote how a book needs a champion to push it and the author to the next level, and having that happen is just such a random event. How many Richard+Judy's, Oprah's, and possibly in my case, Maureen Corrigan's, are there out there? I'm not exactly sure what this means having both the Post review and making the NPR list other than my book is being taken more seriously today than it was a week ago and that more people are now aware of it. But it is an exciting time now.