January 12, 2011
I was outside blowing snow tonight, and guess what I found buried in a drift of white powder on the front stoop? A UPS package about the size of a book. I dusted it off, popped it in the mailbox, and promptly forgot about it as I went on with my snow-blowing. Hours later, the memory clicked into place. I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and grabbed the package out of the mailbox. When I tore it open, what did I see? An advance reader copy, or ARC, of my upcoming novel from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist. What a great surprise! And let me tell you, the publisher did a sensational job putting together this book. The cover rocks (as you can see in the right column of this very home page), and the interior design is wonderfully inventive. The story has three sections running in parallel, so the designer gave each section a different look. My favorite is the book within the book, which she designed to look like a beat-up old paperback with crinkled pages and an entirely different typeface from the rest of My Favorite Band Does Not Exist. So very, very cool. And so very exciting to hold this book in my hands after so much time and work. It has literally been years in the making, from first draft to ARC, and now it’s nearly a reality. And it’s finally sinking in that this book is going to happen, that it’s not a wishful daydream. I can hardly wait till the pub date, July 11, 2011. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it hits the shelves…and Amazon and Barnes and Noble of course. It’s available for pre-order right now, right here at Amazon and right here at Barnes and Noble. What are you waiting for? Go order yourself a copy. I promise, you’ll thank me later.
