{"id":4095,"date":"2015-04-03T09:07:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T13:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=4095"},"modified":"2015-04-03T09:22:30","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T13:22:30","slug":"birthmarked-turns-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/birthmarked-turns-five\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthmarked Turns Five"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Birthmarked-Caragh-M-OBrien\/dp\/0312674724\/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1423248533&amp;sr=1-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-149 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/img_home_birth_marked_book_cover2-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"BirthMarked Novel Book Cover\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/img_home_birth_marked_book_cover2-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/img_home_birth_marked_book_cover2.jpg 273w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/a>Birthmarked<\/em> was released five years ago this week, on March 30th, 2010, when I was on a leave from teaching and trying to decide whether I should resign for good. My agent, Kirby Kim, told me to have faith in myself and my writing, but I was concerned that my novel wouldn\u2019t sell and my writing career would be over with my first YA novel. \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d he said. \u201cBirthmarked will have a long tail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He meant that Gaia\u2019s story might not start with a flash, but it would keep selling.<\/p>\n<p>I think of his words sometimes when I hear from new readers who are just now discovering the book and its sequels, and I feel incredibly fortunate. It\u2019s clear to me now that promotional fuss is not driving sales, because that doesn\u2019t happen for books that are five years old. Instead, I still hear from readers who are passing along the book to their friends, and this amazes me. Gaia\u2019s story has been going steady and strong all this time through word of mouth, and my readers\u2019 support has, in turn, ensured that my publisher continues to support my writing. I feel like we\u2019ve created this quiet success together, at a grass roots level, on the sly.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t want to be sneaky with my gratitude, though. Thanks, readers. Thank you for embracing Gaia\u2019s story and keeping it alive. I\u2019m grateful in more ways than I can ever say.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4096\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/6909544-birthmarked\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4096\" class=\"wp-image-4096\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats.png\" alt=\"GoodreadsStats\" width=\"400\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats.png 1257w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats-300x251.png 300w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats-450x377.png 450w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats-250x209.png 250w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GoodreadsStats-900x753.png 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4096\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">On average, 50 people a day discover Birthmarked on Goodreads. The green line indicates readers add it to their &#8220;to read&#8221; lists.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Birthmarked was released five years ago this week, on March 30th, 2010, when I was on a leave from teaching and trying to decide whether I should resign for good. My agent, Kirby Kim, told me to have faith in myself and my writing, but I was concerned that my novel wouldn\u2019t sell and my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,29],"class_list":["post-4095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked","tag-birthmarked-2","tag-gaia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4100,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4095\/revisions\/4100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}