CONVICT'S SWORD among Uncle Edgar's August bestsellers.

[I. J. Parker]

From time to time we talk about the specialty bookstores and their gracious way of hand-selling mysteries. A few years ago, Jeff Hatfield, one of the owners of Uncle Hugo's/Uncle Edgar's bookstores in Minneapolis, wrote a wonderful review of HELL SCREEN in the store magazine. It was long, detailed, intelligent, and insightful and appeared together with a review of one of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels. I felt greatly honored. Now, several years later, Jeff Hatfield's customers apparently still remember and buy another Akitada novel. Never say, bookstores can't make a difference.

It happened once before at the Poisoned Pen store in Arizona. The owner reviewed my novel and selected it for the book club. That month, I made the bestseller list there. My thanks to both stores for their generous support.

[I. J. Parker]

I have never been to either store. It strikes me that all those authors who come for book-signings can't all expect to be hand-sold. And frankly, the stores where I did do book signings did nothing for me. I was just lucky that in my case two bookstore owners read the books and decided their customers would really like them. I think that it's the book that needs to make the impression.

[Jon Loomis]

Yep. Indie booksellers are the bomb.

[Jack Getze]

First of all, congrats, IJ. It's wonderful to see people enjoying your work. But also, this is the reason some authors spend much time on the road. Booksellers are like SUPER readers -- they can generate enthusiasm in bigger waves than a few fans or a book club.

Imagine 50 independent book sellers pushing your work!