Writer Geekiness
So my writer friend Janice Lynn, winner of this year's Romanatic Times "American Title" contest announced she got her cover flats this week for her upcoming December release "Jane Millioniare." For those of you who don't know, cover flats are basically the actual flattened cover of the book (without the book inside obviously) . The publishers send you like 3 million of them (okay, maybe like 300) to use in promotion.
Anyway - it's a really special moment for a first time author to open up the package and find these glossy, full cover renditions of your actual book staring back at you. I don't know about the rest of you, but the day I saw my cover flats for CT Fashionista, it was the first time I could accept the fact that Dorchester wasn't going to turn around and say, "Sorry we were just joking. You didn't actually think we'd publish YOU did you?" (Yes, all writers are this neurotic!)
So when Janice announced how excited she was to get her cover flats for Jane Millionaire, she mentioned that she kept wrapping one around a copy of MY book and pretending it was hers. (Because they're the same size.) This cracked me up because when I got my cover flats I did the exact same thing - though I wrapped mine around my all-time favorite Love Spell book "Contact" by Susan Grant. I even placed it back in my bookshelf with the fake cover, spine out and stared at it for a while, pretending it was really there.
Silly, huh? Well maybe. But it's just one of many, many strange things we writers do to celebrate our books coming out. Especially first books. It may seem odd to outsiders (I'm sure me taking camera phone photos of my book on the shelf freaked out more than a few Borders shoppers), but I think we deserve a few geek moments of celebration and unabashed childish joy when it comes to our books. And I hope I don't lose that giddy, geeky feeling - even when/if I get to see cover flats for book 100.
So my question for you authors out there: what silly/geeky things have you done to celebrate your books coming out?
Marianne
5 comments:
Well, my book hasn't come out yet, but that hasn't stopped me from geeking out at every little step in the process. Like printing out the deal announcement from Publisher's Lunch and hanging it up in my cubicle at work. Squealing like a little girl when I get things like business cards, etc. with my info on it. Taking a picture of myself signing my contract. Visiting the spot on the shelf in bookstores where my book will be.
In short, going completely crazy.
I checked Amazon and barnesandnoble.com every single day, looking for my book, until the wonderful day I actually found it there. Silly part of this was, I started looking waaaaaay before it could actually be there, just to imagine the thrill of what it would be like to have a search for name and/or title actually pull up results!
Oh man! I haven't started the Barnes & Noble and Amazon thing YET. Trying to avoid it. It's like I'm afraid if I go check once, I'll just have to keep going and checking. :)
I still have my cover wrapped around Marianne's book & that I keep flashing it to everyone who comes to my house this week. But hey, it's free promo for Marianne as everyone opens the book up as if they expect to find the pages of JANE MILLIONAIRE inside & instead they see this fab cover with a Fashionista pulling a sword from a stone. Cool!
A writer's life is a bit crazy, I suppose. Goodness knows I didn't act this way when I graduated from Grad school or when I started my day job. But writing, well, that's my dream. My impossible, it-couldn't-really-ever-happen- but-if-I-could-have-any-dream dream and OMG! it's starting to sink in that it is gonna happen. Holy cow.
Ohmygod, I did all of these things! I wrapped my book cover flat around Karen Moning's Beyond the Highland Mist. I checked Amazon and B&N constantly. I googled myself every morning (still do) and slept with my author copy under my pillow. When that author copy arrived, I actually drove around showing it to everyone I know. I even took the cover flat to the bookstore to see how it would look on the shelves.
I can't wait until I can be as equally insane as all of you! Funny stuff.
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