Calling Off, New Releases and Gertrude Stein

Today is the big day for Kelly Kirch, a fellow writer. Her historical romance with Resplendence Publishing is released. Marriage Mart is one I've been waiting for for a while and I'm eager to curl up with it.

I'm afraid I have no really profound things to say today. Nothing important. In fact, I'm sitting here trying to decide if I am going to call off work tomorrow. Of course I'd never call off for any reason other than personal illness that was so severe I couldn't possibly crawl myself out of my house and off to work. Not now that I'm a responsible adult.

This has not always been the case in the past. I've called off for a sick dog, a sick spouse and a sick car. I've called off because I had papers to finish for a class. I've called off because I didn't have enough money to pay for the gas to get to work all week, so if I just stayed home one or two days, then I could make it til payday. I've called off because I had a late night, not necessarily carrousing and carrying on, but because I was up late reading and was frankly just done the next morning. I once actually called off work because I had no clean clothes. I'd missed laundry day and didn't have anything that met the dress code for my job clean. Of course in my usual last minute way of things, I didn't realize this until that morning.

So what's the worst reason you've ever called off for?

I got good news at the start of March. Measure of Healing, my second release from Cerridwen Press had sold four times as many copies as my first release had during it's first month. I wondered why that was. Was it genre? One is a futuristic romance and one is a paranormal. Is it the covers? I actually liked the first cover better. Is it a new author thing? I have no idea. When I shared this question with others I think the best reaction I got was a lovely paraphrase of Gertrude Stein who said, "There ain't no answer. There ain't never been an answer. There ain't ever going to be an answer. That's the answer."

So I ask you, what makes you decide to buy a book? What makes you pick it up and say, I'll plunk down my hard earned dinero for this one? How important is the cover? The blurb? The author's name?