What are people saying about it? Well, hear from some of the ARC team (names withheld for privacy since these reviews are public yet).

“When the first line contained a joke with the punchline being Jewish don’t believe in hell, I knew I was in for a good chuckle. And I was right!”

“I enjoyed the book so very much until the end where I was immediately blown away by a twist I NEVER saw coming. Usually, I can spot plot twists, but this one was just so… extraordinary. “

“I liked how the magic use was sprinkled through the story and there’s a noticable layer of spirituality – natural with the death investigation of a twin, the talents of the PI and the world building. “

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Well… 

• I published Underleveled as part of the Inkfort Publishing Derby.
• I published Let Sleeping Gods Lie, The Chronicles of Corbin Pierce: Book One.
• I published the audiobook for Dueling Shoulder Angels, The Devil You Know: Book Two.

But I also did a lot of writing!

• I finished writing My Brother’s Keeper, and those ARCs are now officially open!
• A Little Death Among Friends, The Devil You Know: Book Four is 100% draft complete.
• Every God Has Its Day, The Chronicles of Corbin Pierce: Book Two is probably 40% complete. 
• I started recording the audiobook for Too Many Gods in the Kitchen, The Devil You Know: Book Three.

All in all, I wrote over 250,000 new words this year. If you count edits, I got a hamilwordy in (half-million-words) at over 500,000 words. It feels insane to lay it out like that, if I’m honest. Thank you for being on this journey with me, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I create in 2026!

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My Newest Release!

Super Sekrit Project!

Current Projects

A Little Death Among Friends – The Devil You Know, Book 4

Friends, it’s almost done. It’ll be the last book of The Devil You Know’s main story. I’m sitting on 83k right now and writing the climax, soon to ramp down to the epilogue and author’s notes. I hope you like it, it’s got a lot of meaning for me.

My Brother’s Keeper

I’ve got another novel ready for ARCs in the near future called My Brother’s Keeper. It’s a magic system entirely based on Jewish magic and mysticism, and I can’t wait to put it in my readers’ grubby little hands. ARC readers, stay tuned!

Too Many Gods in the Kitchen – Audiobook

Kat and I are going to start ramping up production for the third audiobook this month! I’ve got a surprise for folks as well, and if you’ve read book 3 then you know this announcement is missing something. Soon to be revealed!

This is Ben, signing off

That’s it for now! But I think that’s enough. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’ll make up for it next time.

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So go get your copy! My lovely partner, Katya, debuts as Amy in Book 2 (and will continue in Book 3) and I’m biased but believe their voice was made for narration. Enjoy their delightful takes on the characters, and especially Mel who is a favorite for a number of us.

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Everyone likes numbers, even me. I won’t be sharing dollars here. I’m in the red as an author, no one needs to know by how much.

This was my first full year of writing and publishing (not full time, still have a day job) but I made a number of non-recurring investments in things like audio processing software/plugins, hardware, and other things beyond any normal marketing or advertising that might be on going.

What did I sell the most? Ebooks! Followed by Kindle Unlimited page reads.

Giveaways/Sales

I participated in at least five giveaways/sales this year and gave away over 25,000 electronic copies of my first book!

• BookBub Featured Deal ($0) – Once
• Witchy Bookworms ($0) – Twice
• Stuff Your Kindle Fantasy Edition ($0) – Once
• Indie-Visible Halloween Hauntfest ($0 and $0.99) – Once

I participated in a couple different sales

• Queer Your Bookshelf
• r/Fantasy Mega Sale

By the Numbers

Here are the aggregated sales numbers. Things to remember: My Boss is the Devil was available for 6 months before Dueling Shoulder Angels (book 2) came out. Then Too Many Gods in the Kitchen came out in October. The audiobook also wasn’t available until late October.

So I think my read-through is actually quite good, from book 1>2>3.

As for sales that grossed me at least some kind of royalties? At least 284 book equivalents (because of Kindle Unlimited “borrows”) across print, ebook, KU, and audio.

Where in the World are My Books?

My biggest market is the US, but I’ve sold/given away books in (in no particular order):

• The United States
• Canada
• The United Kingdom
• France
• Spain
• Japan
• India
• Germany
• Italy
• Brazil
• Mexico

What will 2025 Bring?

I have a few goals for 2025

1. Produce 35,000 “words” per month. This can be writing, recording, editing, etc. I have an ongoing challenge with Poppy Alexanders to keep ourselves accountable to the goal.
2. Finish Recording, editing, mastering for the audiobook of Dueling Shoulder Angels. I hope to release it some time in February.
3. Edit and release Let Sleeping Gods Lie, a new standalone/series starter.
4. Finish drafting, then edit and release My Brother’s Keeper, another new standalone/series starter.
5. Start drafting another The Devil You Know book, I think there’s at least one more in there.
6. Start recording the audiobook for Too Many Gods in the Kitchen, and hopefully get that out mid-year.

I feel like this is enough/a lot. I look forward to keeping you all updated!

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My Boss is the Devil, narrated by yours truly, is now available on Audible and Apple Books! Go check it out!

https://www.audible.com/pd/B0DLR6Q274/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-419879&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_419879_rh_us

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But here I am. It’s the season where we’re supposed to be considering what we’re thankful for.

You, my dear reader. It’s you that I’m thankful for.

The post Giving Thanks appeared first on Ben Schenkman - Author.

Background

For context, I was part of two promotions. This is considered “promo stacking” where multiple promos run at the same time, to maximize reach and marketing.

• Indie Visible Halloween Hauntfest [Oct 25-28]
  • Allowed for both free and discounted books, multiple listings accepted from the same author.
  • Cost to enter: $20
• Witchy Bookworms [Oct 26]
  • Only free books, must be “witchy”, only one book allowed.
  • Cost to enter: Free

I offered My Boss is the Devil for free, and discounted the next two in the series to $0.99. My goal for the weekend was to promote by books, and see how much follow-through I would get on purchases of books 2-3 at a discount.

Additionally, I paid for a promotion by Book Barbarian, a service that provides an allegedly vast number of subscribers with information about free and discounted books. I’ll give my thoughts on this one later.

Give me the numbers!

Ok, final numbers for the weekend:

So roughly, for every ~40 free books I gave away, I got a sale on both books 2 and 3. This is rough math, I’m not being too exacting about it.

As for the markets, I had a number of readers from other countries pick up books. The US, UK, and Canada were the largest, but that’s no surprise.

My books are also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited so I received a number of page reads too.

I think I did get a bump in reads during the event, and hopefully I continue to see that after the promotion, from the rankings bumps.

How this affects Amazon Rankings

One reason to do this type of promotion is to bump your Amazon category rankings. I was super excited to see some great results there. During the free book promotion, My Boss is the Devil ended up #1 in all three of its free categories (Dark Comedy, General Humor, and Occult Suspense).

The other bonus was the additional sales make Dueling Shoulder Angels and Too Many Gods in the Kitchen shoot up in the paid categories. They went as high as #2 and #3, respectively.

There are also those little Amazon banners, and the sales on book 3 helped push it to a #1 New Release, so hopefully that also gets Amazon to promote the book more.

My Thoughts

I’m delighted with the results! This isn’t the first time I’ve participated in Witchy Bookworms, but it was the first Indie Visible event that I did. I would do both again. The fact that I sold over 200 eBooks on top of giving away as many as I did was amazing to see.

One challenge I encountered was that the Witchy Bookworms site was down for the morning (until about 1PM EST) so it’s hard to know how many more sales I would have made if the site had been up.

My only opinion about Book Barbarian was that I doubt it added anything to my numbers. I’ve done single source giveaways (i.e. just Witchy Bookworms) and had my numbers be higher than this for a single day, so I don’t think I’ll waste the money on Book Barbarian or similar services in the future.

Thanks to anyone who picked up my books this weekend, and I hope you enjoy them!

-Ben

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Release date is October 15th!

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Too Many Gods in the Kitchen!

Too Many Gods in the Kitchen, Book 3 of The Devil You Know is out with Advanced Readers!

If you’ve ever wanted access to books before they’re available to the public, consider signing up to be on my ARC team! In exchange for an honest review you receive an early copy and agree to post a review on launch day.

What else is happening?

I’m currently hard at work writing my next book, and I’m about 50% of the way through the first draft. It’s a different world (though still an alternate version of New Haven, CT) with a new cast of characters, and different problems.

The audiobook of My Boss is the Devil, Book 1 of The Devil You Know, is in production! It’s as-read by the author, and I’m making my way through post production edits and mastering. I hope to have the first out by the end of October.

Local event!

I’ll be appearing at the Artworks Westfield Artoberfest, September 28, 2024, with fellow Caffeinated Terrier Press author Tal Good! Come see us!

That’s it for now, but keep in touch if you have any questions about me, my books, or anything else!

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