Here's a status report for anyone interested in the trials of self-publishing in this new age of empowerment for us crazies:

This has been like making one more cast or two into striper waters before calling it a day (I always stayed, in my striper days, until my arm hurt):

Hoping to resuscitate sales as this novel fades into the sunset, I sent out a query in October to about 20 Amazon reviewers (thru a service that found them) asking if they'd consider reading TJRM. Eight said they would.

I also scheduled a paperback giveaway thru Goodreads, which drew more than 625 contestants, most of whom also marked the book as a "To Read" on their shelves.

Fifteen won a copy; I mailed them out last week.

What did I get so far for these efforts?

Sales have never been so bad. One Kindle copy this month, no Nooks, paperbacks or Smashwords. In fact, I just "unpublished" the Nook and Smashwords editions so I can stop checking those sites. Not worth the effort.

As for reviewers, there have been:

• Two five-star ratings, one from a top 500 Amazon "vine" reviewer who wrote a sharp review that emphasized the racial aspects of the novel; (** -- see update at bottom)

• A 4-star rating from a guy who liked it a lot but dismissively detected "a tear jerker" ending;

• A 3-star from a Floridian who said he had expected more comedy so felt the book "missed" but thought the history elements were well handled;

• And a 2-star from a Indie writer Texan who really seems to have been loaded for bear when he took up this book and — while saying the dialogue was "right on for the period" — blasted it for errors, bad writing and ridiculousness. (One of the 5-star people specifically praised the writing and even what he called the editing ... Hey. Why does this paradox still surprise me? It has been going on since I published the first Kindle edition.)

That's an average so far of 3.8 -- which is just below its Goodreads average of 3.90 after 69 ratings.
And thanks to the Texan and the guy who wanted comedy, its Amazon rating is down from 4.5 to 4.4 after 34 reviews.

I note that a lot of literary works, including great ones, have ratings like this and a similar rating array ... mostly 4's and 5's, but a lot of 3's and a certain percentage of 2's and even 1's. Huckleberry Finn, one of the greatest of great American novels despite its flawed, rushed ending, is a 3.77 on Goodreads, with more than 1,000 ratings of 1. Good grief. They are probably not people I'd like to have dinner with.

Well, I dread the potential reviews still likely to come in over the next couple of months from the reviewers and readers who have not yet chimed in. *

But I hope against hope their ratings will beat the odds and the clear pattern that now seems set in stone: My little masterpiece, such as it is, will never been recognized by a wide audience. For all its apparent simplicity, it's too complicated. So it's no wonder that no reviewer has hit the nail on the head in a way that ties together the personal and the national issues raised by the story's elements.

The many readers who want pot-boilers and genre fiction won't like it.

That film rights query last summer from the big Beverly Hills agency sure made it hard to get over my hopes, even though I've heard nothing since.

And hey -- one very nice thing: The Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis and its suburbs says on its website that it has 3 copies of TJRM on order. Nice! How did they even know it existed? And why 3 copies? (And why don't I see any order for 3 copies on the book's Createspace dashboard?)

Arghhh. I'd much prefer to be working on a new book than thinking about these pointless things.

* One came in yesterday from Jim M on Goodreads, another reviewer whom I solicited. Five stars, I am delighted to report. Says he couldn't put it down. "Great book," can't wait to visit Monticello again. So how come the book works so well for readers like him and evokes such contempt from a few others? if it WERE badly written, I'd get it. There are a lot of badly written books that get by on story line alone. But as an old editor, I know it's not badly written. I really wonder if it has to do with politics in at least some of these cases even though these reviewers blast the writing. They think it's a liberal screed which it is not.
** A 4-star came in Nov . 30 with a fascinating review and it looks like a 5-star came in Dec. 1 but it has not yet propagated to a place where I can read it. Goodreads is like that. (And since then another 5 and a 4 from people I did not solicit for a review or who did not win a free copy.)