The book is out

As of Tuesday, my book is officially out. Rush to your local bookseller and demand they sell you a copy. Get your friends and family to buy one. Badger your local library to acquire multiple copies. Donate one to your high school. Nag the school board to design a course based on it. I'm available for interviews. I'm available for signings. I'm available for lunch (if you're paying). Let's sell this thing.

This is a huge milestone in my life. Actually, several milestones in several aspects of my life, but let me stick to the most obvious. This is a major punctuation point in that project. I came up with the idea, sold it to an agent, who sold it to a publisher, who helped me edit the final copy, which was printed, and officially came out Tuesday. Preordered copies were shipped and my friends have been reporting receiving them all week. Technically, the project isn't over. I need to help sell it; do interviews, readings, and signings; and possibly write some more related mammoth materials.

This milestone is also a call to start a new project. I've written before how the book grew out of the idea for a single blog post, that became a series of blog posts, to a short book, to a dissertation. The two things I want to write now are the book I've wanted to write for thirty-five years--my history of the aftermath of WWI--and the other is another blog post gone out of control--my interpretation of the psychology and history of American political partisanship. Both have contemporary relevance.

The WWI book is coming up against marketable centennials. This will be an easier book to write. I've not only been thinking about it for over half of my life, it's the field of history that I specialized in during grad school. I own over a hundred books relevant to the topic. Unfortunately, the books are all in storage in Washington while I'm stuck in Alaska.

The book on recent partisanship in American politics, is something I've started over and over again as a blog post. I always get stuck at the point where I want to start citing sources. This is where my mammoth book got out of control. Tracking down things I've read over the last twenty years, just for a long-read blog-post that fewer than fifty people will finish was too discouraging to contemplate. It would make a great magazine piece, but I doubt my mammoth book alone is enough credentials sell the idea.

I'm also tempted to drag out some of my other abandoned, long blog-posts and try out publishing an e-book just for the experience. Unfortunately, many of those posts are on a hard-drive, stored with my books over a thousand miles away.

Decisions. Decisions.

PS -- Buy my book.

PPS -- I suppose this means I should go back to talking about politics and things unrelated to the book.

Book update

The book has been printed. The printer started shipping to wholesalers last week. It should finally work it's way into your local bookstore the first week in August.

Meanwhile, the British science journal, Nature, is planning to review it and the Christian Science Monitor will be interviewing me for their review page.

Now what am I supposed to do?

Have I mentioned lately that I was writing a book? Yep, little, old me. Saturday, I finished it. It's written, proofed, noted, biblographied, illustrated, and captioned. Then I tied it up with a virtual bow and shipped it off to my agent. It weighs in at a petite 88,592 words. This morning I heard back from her. She thinks it's satisfactory, or, as she put it, "You are amazing! Not many first time authors (or seasoned ones!) can deliver so complete—and to my quick perusal—excellent, an enchilada on such a tight timeline." I am rather proud of my enchiladas.

Book update

We sold the book.

I've been holding my breath over this, but it finally came together today. Last spring I started sending lots of query letters to agents. In June, one asked to see my full proposal. A few days later, she asked to talk to me. At the end of the talk, she offered to represent me. I accepted and she sent me a contract. After that, we worked on improving my proposal and working up a better sample chapter. Just before Thanksgiving she said she thought it was ready and that she was sending it out to publishers. The week before Christmas, two publishers wrote back asking for more information. One was a small university press. The other was a major publishing house. Ten days ago, the University press made an offer. It was a much smaller offer than I had hoped for, but it was exciting to think that, no matter what happens, the book will see the light of day.

Fast forward to today. We still haven't heard back from the big publishing house. It's Friday. There was only junk mail in my box. Considering the time difference, it was already after lunch in New York. I figured that meant I wasn't going to hear anything this week. I deleted all the junk mail and as Gmail refreshed, a new letter appeared from my agent. A third press was interested and was making an offer. The new offer was more money, greater marketing mojo, and a hardback release sooner than the university offer. Other than the million-dollars-and-a-cheese-sandwich offer that I never really expected to get, this was everything I had realistically hoped for. I wrote back basically saying "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG, YES!!!"

The normal procedure, at this point is to notify anyone else who has expressed an interest to see if they want to start a bidding war. An hour later, my agent wrote back to say, this morning's publisher raised their bid and the other two dropped out. Most people who have met me will say that, with exceptions that don't need to be listed here, I'm usually a fairly reserved person. I was screaming and dancing in the kitchen. "Tell them yes! Tell them yes! Tell them yes!!!!"

And that, dear friends, is where we stand. The publisher will send a formal contract to my agent stating the terms of the bid; she'll examine it and, if everything is above board, send it to me to sign; I'll fall to the floor in a swoon, then get up; and sign it. Naturally, about five minutes after I gave her my permission to accept the bid, my impostor syndrome kicked into overdrive. Unless some drunken prankster in mail-room of the publisher sent the bid, I now have four months to deliver a draft.

It's finally real. Ever since I was a teen-ager, I've wanted to be a writer. My topic has changed over the years: first I want to be a science fiction novelist, then I wanted to make important contributions to my fields of graduate study (modern Balkans and colonial Africa). After dropping out of grad school, I became a technical writer. It was pretty cool to fill out the "Occupation" box on my tax forms with "Writer" even if the writing wasn't that exciting. Blogging was a little more satisfying, but eventually that became harder to do as traffic dried up. Somewhere along the way I stumbled into mammoths. It was nothing more than a blog post that I meant to use to illustrate a different point. Nine years later, it's a book. I think on my next tax form I might write "Author."

I just signed a contract with a literary agent

I HAVE  AN AGENT!!!!!!! OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG!!!!!!!