Upon returning from Serbia-Montenegro (or Serbija Crna Gorna, as they call it) yesterday, I was pleased for a few reasons. The first is obvious, and the post just below this one: the Barry and Anthony nominations for Bridge of Sighs, which brings that little book to its fourth and fifth award nominations. Second, I’d received my Italian contracts with Neri Pozza Editore, who are publishing my first two books. Third (and most unimpressive) is that after having spotted my books in the dreaded 300,000-tier on Amazon during the trip, they’ve hopped back up into the under-100,000 region (except for the hardback of Bridge, which I’ve also spotted on some sites as a “remaindered” item…geez). What do those numbers mean? I peaked at around 5000 once, which got me quite excited, but I never knew what I was excited about. One opinion of their real-world values is here. The sad fact is that publishers report your actual sales maybe twice a year, so in the meantime writers have nothing else to go by.