Brent Weeks

The term “best-seller” used to mean something.

It meant some pencil-necked rube working for the New York Times liked your book. But these days everybody and his dog has a best-seller list. Some of these people try to actually base their lists on actual books sold. The nerve.

Locus Magazine, the venerable SFF  industry mag, compiles an SFF best-seller list from numbers reported to them by Borders/Walden, B&N/B.Dalton, Bakka-Phoenix, Borderlands, McNally Robinson, Mysterious Galaxy, Pages for All Ages, St. Mark’s, Toadstool, Uncle Hugo’s, and White Dwarf. The latest issue of Locus reports that The Way of Shadows is the #2 best-selling fantasy paperback. Woo hoo! Shadow’s Edge rolled in at a respectable #6. Beyond the Shadows was a conspicuous no-show (the data was from November, before BtS was published, so one hopes that had something to do with it). The online edition isn’t updated yet, but this link is to the previous month’s list.

Not sure how to reconcile the three–could the indies be moving a lot more copies of my books than the big bad Joe Foxes of the world?–but I don’t show up at all on the latest Barnes and Noble/B. Dalton SFF list. And Borders has Charlaine Harris absolutely dominating their list, still. She has SFF paperback spots 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. I did sneak into the middle of all that southern vampire lovin’ to take spot #5. I thought they said if I wanted my books to sell like mad, ”you should show with BO,” so I swore off deodorant immediately.

Have a show with HBO. H B O.

On Wednesday, February 11th at 7pm PST (3AM GMT), I’ll be doing my first live interview for the Blog Talk Radio program Geekerati. Details and call in number HERE, along with a nice reminder feature if you want to tune in. They do field a couple of phone calls depending on time, and it looks like each program lasts about an hour. I’m just glad I’m not famous enough to get my own “You Know” counter. Ouch. But if you are interested in listening to the “you knows,” “ums,” and “likes” (or even the gibberish in between) but you miss the live version, you can also catch the podcast after the fact through the links above or in the iTunes stores (search Geekerati). They also have some other, more impressive folks you can listen to. More info about Geekerati on their blog HERE.

No, it’s not my high school French coming back. It’s the French release of The Way of Shadows, coming on the 19th of February from Bragelonne. Here’s the amazing cover by Frédéric Perrin. C’ést magnifique, non? (I’m pretty sure that’s French for “It kicks ass, huh?”) There’s also an interview HERE. Yes, it is in French. But if you haven’t discovered it yet, you can use the cool Google Translate feature. The whole page (automatically translated) is HERE. It does translate “The Way of Shadows” as “Shadows Lane.” Nnniice. Some parts of the interview are totally incomprehensible, but that might be the fault of the interviewee rather than the technology. I guess we sad monoglots will just have to make do.

Who is/was wildly popular in odd places, BUT I am taking eastern Europe by storm. Well, by squall anyhow. Okay, it’s light drizzle–but with fiercely overcast skies. Last week, we sold the Polish rights to the whole trilogy. Mag Jacek Rodek will be publishing The Way of Shadows within 24 months. Then, this week, we sold the rights to the whole trilogy to the Czech Republic. Not sure which publisher, but most likely will also be out within 24 months, as well. Woo hoo!

As always, huge thanks to agents Don and Cameron at DMLA, and this time a double thank-you to Milena at Prava i Prevodi!

The Night Angel Trilogy will now be available in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. This weekend I will post the French cover of The Way of Shadows, its release date–and a new poll.