It is time! It is time! It is time for the virtual book tour! I will be all over the country in June, but if I am not coming to a bookstore near you, then first, ALAS! And second, this is how you can be a part of the launch of Backseat Saints ANYWAY, in spite of the stupid country being too dern big for me to get to all of it. At any moment, up to and including June 15th, 2010, you can press that button and preorder (via a secure server) a signed (and personalized, if that’s how you roll) first edition, first printing copy of Backseat Saints. Any moment at all. I will keep the button right here until June 15th, and we will count down and everything. But the best moment to presspresspress that button is right now, yes, now, indeed, this very moment. Here is why:
1) Excuse me for saying so, but it is a good book. If you liked my other books, then I REALLY think you will like it. If you have not read my other books, I am violently, disgustingly, shamelessly proud of this one, and I think it is a great place to start. Since I spent a couple of years of my life writing it, perhaps I should say I am not the only one who says it is good—Booklist just gave it a starred review, calling it “absorbing and rewarding,” and saying, “Rose’s salvation, when it comes, is positively breathtaking.”
2) If you like my books and want Hachette to publish more of them, then you’ll be supporting my writing in the best and most high impact way: By ordering a book in hardback for a sale that registers in Saint’s first weeks of release. That brief, key time decides a book’s fate, and each book’s fate decides the writer’s.
Yes. The cat DOES want his own copy. He told me so.
4) You’ll be supporting a truly amazing bookstore that I love, one that is a champion for all kinds of lesser known voices in AMAZING and committed ways, out of the sheer love of reading and good books. No one becomes a bookseller for the cars and the babes and the money. Handselling books is a labor of love. The Alabama Booksmith gang epitomizes that passion. These guys helped launch my career, and the careers of countless other new voices. The Booksmith is a part of Indie Bound, too, and if you have spent any time here you KNOW how fanatically I believe the Indies are worth supporting.
5) AH! But perhaps you don’t actually read novels. Maybe you mostly read non-fiction, like those fascinating warning pages that come with prescription medications that tell you you should eat this even though it may cause bloating or premature death. If you are here, then probably you like the blog and would like to support my writing, but perhaps my books are not your thing. THAT’S OKAY! I bet you know (and love) someone who DOES enjoy a good novel. Your parents or a sibling or a close friend or a teacher or your therapist or your karate instructor—a signed first ed of Backseat Saints is an excellent gift. You can even have me inscribe it in a Birthday or Anniversary or Christmas or other gift giving holiday appropriate manner. I do not care that it is June—I will write whatever you like in it.There is a box where you can tell me what to say, and I will obediently say it. Then the shopping for that person’s special is done, and tra la la you can prance off feeling happy, and I will, too.
6) If you do not read novels AND you live in a windowless, doorless cube slowly eating your mountainous stash of food pellets and shunning all human contact, and therefore you know no one who reads novels, you should STILL press the button. Because, good LORD, this book is So. Freakin. Gorgeous. The cover is a photo by the brilliant Cig Harvey. There is another equally gorgeous Cig Harvey shot on the back. It will brighten the cube up and make you happy. Or, if you do have human contact, just not with READERS, the book would make an excellent conversation piece. You can set it on your coffee table and talk about how you had to buy this one as a non-reading person who contains a soul and loves ART. (And, just between us, it will look hella better on your mantle than that ugly vase you have been flirting with at Target. Nodnodnod.)
Actual X-ray of my abdominal cavity. Note evil spleen.
Okay, that’s all I got. Really, after threatening one’s own death, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for further convince-ification…I even LIED to you, OH THE SHAME, because that’s not an X-ray. That’s actually a cookie made by some genius I found on the internet named Jeannie. You should go look at all her amazing cookies (I like the beheaded guy), and forgive me for lying—just take it as a clear indication of how sincerely I think you should press the button.
Some of you, I know, prefer audio and e-book editions to old fashioned paper, and a lot of you have already pre-ordered in your chosen format, and THANKS! THANKS! YOU ARE SEXY BEASTS. If you want to do me a further solid you can tell OTHER people about this virtual book tour, though. You can facebook, tweet, or even old fashioned tell-with-your-mouth all your reading friends and relations about this. Would you? Please? I’ll let you eat the evil spleen cookie…
Thank goodness that isn’t really your x-ray! I couldn’t help but notice the lungs are pitch black and you obviously already have your hands full with Mellisa, Hortense, Jilly and Lilly! I will obediently be pressing the button in just a moment.
I pressed the button–1) Because I’ve had Backseat Saints on my to-read list for months now and 2) Because I love the fact that you taught a writing course at my alma mater (Agnes Scott) even if I was terribly jealous that I had already graduated and moved away and thus wouldn’t be able to participate and 3) I love that you support an independent bookstore in my old hometown and I wanted to support it too. Can’t wait to read Saints!
I already HAVE my faux-monster-fur pimp coat. The awesome profits-go-to-GLBTQ-friendly-health-clinics secondhand store had it tagged as a “Halloween” item. I laughed out loud, bought it instantly, and wear it incessantly. I’ve only wanted a monster-fur pimp coat since, oh, 1987.
Thanks, God and Fab Secondhand Shop!!!!
But Ima press the button ANYWAY.
I’m NOT pressing the button, because I’m going to the Alabama Booksmith event because on their web site they say you’re as comfortable on the stage as you are on the page. Well, hello there!
I have no real monies myself, but I did just get the reader’s advisor at our library to order a copy! (She ordered it, right there in front of me! So yay! AND that means I shall be the first to get it when it comes in. Also yay!)
In your x-ray/cookie, Hortense looks a bit like Oscar the Grouch. I’m not sure if anyone else notices these kinds of things, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer.
Also, clicking and buying! I wish I could get all four from you and signed by you, but alas we cannot. (*Sniffles* still to no Minnesota on your tour.)
I am going to press the button because of number 1, but oh, number 7 made me laugh so hard I almost spit my lovely slice of pumpkin bread all over my lovely computer!
Also, your x-ray shows an EXTRA set of eyes in your BRAIN, with sprinkles (sprinkles are the best).
Button pressed and, because I read the other three after checking them out from the library, I bought them too. Now off to tell many others to buy the book…
Just wanted to let you know that a copy of Backseat Saints will find it’s way to Norway, Europe this summer. See, I don’t like your books, I LOVE them! Keep up the (very!) good work, I know I’m going to have some great days (and nights)reading, laughing and imagining I’m an American southern girl, and not just a Norwegian southern girl.
Oh woe, it appears i cannot choose to send the copy to anybody who does not live in the US, as the “shipping address” only allows US addresses and there is no shipping cost to send it overseas. Which i guess may be because it is against some big publishing rules that people in other nations whose release dates are not celestially aligned with ours may not receive contraband bookage?
See, i had some nefarious plans to send a copy to a dear friend in the UK who has managed to completely turn her life around in making some amazing positive changes over the past year, and who loves your books and would do a dance of joy to receive an inscribed new Joshilyn book. Though perhaps it is for the best, as i suspect you would not actually be okay with writing something like “Congratulations A**HOLE! Hearts! Joshilyn” even though we use it as a term of endearment, really, i swear.
But I already ordered mine!!! And you never come all the way up here to PA. Boo.
I will download it from Audible as soon as it’s available. Can’t wait!
I am not pushing the button. But you know why.
And I have it on Very Good Authority that our shop will be getting signed copies, and one of them is mine, guaranteed! Even though I have already read it in ARC form, and loved it and have been talking it up all over the place here. Because it is a freakin’ OUTSTANDING book!
With an amazing cover too!
(thanks for the nice things you said in #4, even if it’s not my shop. we indie handsellers of books all thank you incredibly and with huge blushes)
You mean you’re NOT really a gingerbread cookie on a paper plate!? Am stunned!
Also, where do you FIND this stuff?
You know, it is a funny thing. But I was just gandering at the Alabama Booksmith bag I have from when I got my first edition, signed, personalized copy of TGWSS, which I have been proudly using to tote my Spanish books back and forth to class, and thinking that it looked just the TINIEST little bit rough around the edges. And here you are, like a magical Mellisa-free sprite, with your beautiful book cover and your handy-dandy ordering button, and… well, it’s just like you read my mind.
I just pushed the button and ordered! Pluse I pre-ordered from B&N already, but I figure I can give that book to someone else.
Also, just in case you didn’t love the people at Alabama Booksmith enough they just did me a solid. My husband is in the Army and we are currently living overseas. A lot of vendors don’t ship to APOs. I guess they don’t like to take the time to fill out the customs form because it otherwise costs the same. Anydangway, they didn’t have an APO option, so I wrote to them and they said it will be no problem to ship to me and even remembered who I was. I pink puffy heart them.
P.S. If you want to come to Italy on your book tour you can stay with me and I’ll show you ALL the good eaterys.
OH YES The Italinas need to buy the rights. YUM. I need to eat things in the boot. YAY for all you button pushing delcious humans.
Nikki, this does not surprise me in the least—This is how a neighborhood bookstore works, ask Fran, above, it is just HOW THEY ARE. IE Super. Also, you know, if anyone has any sort of OVERSEAS or weird addy or shipping issue, just call the number on the form instead of filling it out and Jake and Mike et al will Hook. You. Up.
Yay! I pushed the button – it’ll get here in time for my summer vacation and I will gobble it up and then give it to my mom. Can’t wait.
Oh, I do so love me some Alabama Booksmith; every proprietor in our fabulous nation could take lessons from Jake Reiss as far as I’m concerned.
Heh, we found a Cajun eatery near the shop, run by a transplant from Katrina, or so I’m told. In any case, the food is excellent, so next time your fractious spleen acts up, bring it on up this way and we’ll soothe it with lovely good food. After you sign piles of books, of course!
I preordered it from Amazon a while ago.
Holy crow, I picked a good first time to visit your blog! Just recently read Gods in Alabama and am pitching it over to my son as reward for him slogging through The Scarlet Letter. He’s not liking that, but I’m betting he WILL enjoy Gods. He’s awesome that way.
Love your writing; love your voice. And I don’t yet know about the button pushing, but I do have a plan (a plan!) to pick up all your books and start methodically working my way through. I just can’t wait! Enjoy the tour.
In the interests of truth in blogalism I have to testify that when last seen Joshilyn was positively luminous, radiating health, intelligence and good humor. On the other hand she never mentioned that she was fresh from being throttled and drained by internal squid, only propping herself gracefully against solid objects when her adoring fans kept her standing minute after minute … so it is entirely possible that someone so stoic might very well be minutes from being transmuted into another sphere. I wouldn’t trust that spleen. Better buy the book, just to keep your conscience clear (I hear stress is tough on spleens with eyebrows.)
[...] Seven Reasons to Press the Button [...]
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
just what goes up, must come down?
I am going to push the button because the lolcats are a little creepy, AND I agree that now more than ever it is important to support indie booksellers and writers more directly.
[...] Seven Reasons to Press the Button [...]