I freely admit I check the sales rankings of my books at Amazon.com nearly every day. I get bored. Several months ago, shortly after Darkscapes was officially withdrawn from the Baltimore publisher, Amazon sold enough that they put up the “Only 1 left in stock. More on the way” message. Then the message was that they had three copies in stock. I was pretty surprised yesterday to see that they are back down to one copy and the message that more are coming.

More better not be coming. The book is out of print. The first time Amazon got more, I didn’t think much of it, figuring the Publisher in America simply unloaded what they had left. The publisher Web site no longer lists the book at all. From what I can tell at the moment, Amazon has one copy and B&N online has at least one. A couple of local Oklahoma City metro stores have copies. And that should be it. I don’t know of any other new copies available anywhere. If Amazon gets more in stock, that publisher will be getting more hate mail from me.

By the way, thanks to whoever bought those two copies. It’s a dedicated fan who’ll pay $19.95 for a 210-page short story collection from somebody as relatively unknown as me. You’ll note that in the story “Reunion” the word “alter” should be “altar” three times. My mistake, but proof that PA does zero copyediting.

Yesterday was the final day for Stoker recommendations. I’m very proud to note that Murdered by Human Wolves has at least seven recommendations, putting it on the preliminary ballot. Thanks to those who rec’d it. Competition from here gets steep. I can’t recall everyone else who made it in the Long Fiction category, but I know Angeline Hawkes-Craig had the most recommendations. I think Tim Lebbon had two works that made it and the genre’s new 800-pound gorilla Brian Keene made it, too. There are others, but I can’t remember who at the moment. Any active HWA members interested in reading Murdered by Human Wolves can still get a free copy from the publisher by e-mailing editor@scrybepress.com.

Speaking of Scrybe, the incredibly talented Kirk () came through again. He created an absolutely stunning cover for Scrybe’s pending print release of my haunted house novella Seven Days in Benevolence. It’s very creepy and fits the story much better than the e-book cover DDP created. By the way, that’s Kirk’s work you see in my avatar now; it’s a detail of his cover for Call to the Hunt. Stunning, huh?