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ewein2412I have two weeks.
I would like to write something heroic and inspired before I go up in fireworks, but I am too stupid and sick with dread to think of anything. I can’t even think of anyone else’s memorable defiance to repeat. I wonder what William Wallace said when they were tying him to the horses that would rip him into quarters. All I can think of is Nelson saying ‘Kiss me, Hardy.’
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OK, so I’m not really sick with dread. And nothing actually ever happens on a book’s ‘launch day’. You wait and wait and wait and wait, you waste years of your life waiting, and the publication date comes and goes and if you don’t mark it with a handful of confetti of your own, you find you’re actually just waiting again—for reviews or ratings or feedback of some kind—only now the waiting has no demarcated limit and eventually trickles off into waiting for the next book. I know, I know. Special Ops Exec. Write -
I’m not ‘sick with dread’, but I am apprehensive about Code Name Verity in a way that is new to me. It is new to me because it has real hope in it—hope that is gradually sloughing off its gild of cynicism. And that is because people are reading and enjoying this book. I sit here at my computer and I see what’s going on, in the blogosphere and the reviewing world, and I can’t quite believe it. I certainly can’t see where it’s going. I am almost as apprehensive of success as I am of disappointment.
CNV is, for example, an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Book of the Month in May. This may generate what a couple of reviewers are calling ‘hype,’ but it isn’t hype in and of itself. Hype didn’t put it there - the book put itself there. And that just makes my jaw drop.
Of course, it’s already out here in the UK. I’ve no idea how well it’s doing—the excitement of the first ‘Book Birthday’ has tapered off, and I don’t know if it’s selling according to plan. A team of guerrilla CNV Special Ops agents send me pictures of the book displayed in the windows of independent booksellers, or occasionally on a prominent shelf in the chains, bearing a handwritten staff recommendation card. I don’t quite know where to file these small triumphs in my brain. They astonish me. When the phenomenal review of CNV in Publisher’s Weekly turned up, and I found it online before my agent or even the publisher knew it was there, I didn’t tweet it for three days because I was sure it must be an error. But it wasn’t an error.
OK, you all know the location of the first aid kit and the fire extinguisher, right? And how to open the hatches in the event of a forced landing? Echo Echo Whiskey, ready for departure.
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‘I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.’ - The Grateful Dead
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Comment, and we'll do one of our lame 'Sara picks a name out of a hat' giveaways - an autographed copy of the UK edition of CNV. Closes 8 a.m. BST Sat. 5 May 2012 (that's 8 a.m. British Summer Time, so Friday midnight in California, I think. That way I can mail it on saturday morning and you have a chance of getting it before the release date. Yes, I will ship internationally. I am wild that way.)
I would like to write something heroic and inspired before I go up in fireworks, but I am too stupid and sick with dread to think of anything. I can’t even think of anyone else’s memorable defiance to repeat. I wonder what William Wallace said when they were tying him to the horses that would rip him into quarters. All I can think of is Nelson saying ‘Kiss me, Hardy.’
--------------------------
OK, so I’m not really sick with dread. And nothing actually ever happens on a book’s ‘launch day’. You wait and wait and wait and wait, you waste years of your life waiting, and the publication date comes and goes and if you don’t mark it with a handful of confetti of your own, you find you’re actually just waiting again—for reviews or ratings or feedback of some kind—only now the waiting has no demarcated limit and eventually trickles off into waiting for the next book. I know, I know. Special Ops Exec. Write -
I’m not ‘sick with dread’, but I am apprehensive about Code Name Verity in a way that is new to me. It is new to me because it has real hope in it—hope that is gradually sloughing off its gild of cynicism. And that is because people are reading and enjoying this book. I sit here at my computer and I see what’s going on, in the blogosphere and the reviewing world, and I can’t quite believe it. I certainly can’t see where it’s going. I am almost as apprehensive of success as I am of disappointment.
CNV is, for example, an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Book of the Month in May. This may generate what a couple of reviewers are calling ‘hype,’ but it isn’t hype in and of itself. Hype didn’t put it there - the book put itself there. And that just makes my jaw drop.
Of course, it’s already out here in the UK. I’ve no idea how well it’s doing—the excitement of the first ‘Book Birthday’ has tapered off, and I don’t know if it’s selling according to plan. A team of guerrilla CNV Special Ops agents send me pictures of the book displayed in the windows of independent booksellers, or occasionally on a prominent shelf in the chains, bearing a handwritten staff recommendation card. I don’t quite know where to file these small triumphs in my brain. They astonish me. When the phenomenal review of CNV in Publisher’s Weekly turned up, and I found it online before my agent or even the publisher knew it was there, I didn’t tweet it for three days because I was sure it must be an error. But it wasn’t an error.
OK, you all know the location of the first aid kit and the fire extinguisher, right? And how to open the hatches in the event of a forced landing? Echo Echo Whiskey, ready for departure.
---------------------------
‘I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.’ - The Grateful Dead
---------------------------
Comment, and we'll do one of our lame 'Sara picks a name out of a hat' giveaways - an autographed copy of the UK edition of CNV. Closes 8 a.m. BST Sat. 5 May 2012 (that's 8 a.m. British Summer Time, so Friday midnight in California, I think. That way I can mail it on saturday morning and you have a chance of getting it before the release date. Yes, I will ship internationally. I am wild that way.)