Ketchup

I still intend to bang out a more informative post about my wild adventures at Norwescon, but I've been obsessed with a final polish of Zone. You'd think it was the end of the world or something. Ha. The book is in my editor's hands at last.

Off subject: I lost the PKD but here's my cosmic boobyprize. Minotauro has declared La Plaga a bestseller in the Spanish market, which means my American publisher is now changing my byline for Plague Zone to read "Jeff Carlson, International Bestselling Author." I do like me the sound of that! Wow!

To our left, we have a little book porn -- not pornography of people, but porno for book lovers. Look at those tasty muffins sitting in the window display. Must... buy... them... Touch... them...

Also fun, here's a link to charts compiled by one of Spain's book chains, which has Antidoto at #1 today on the very top of the heap. And that's in hardcover as a mainstream novel.

More soon.

Labels: International Bestseller, La Plaga, Minotauro, Norwescon 32 insider report

Here’s the cover art for Antídoto, better known to you and me as Plague War. It’s nice and freaky, and matches the first book perfectly. I like where Minotauro is going with the trilogy. La Plaga. Antídoto. Maybe the third book will be called New Outbreak, but in ultra-cool Spanish, of course.

In more somber news, my editor reports that the global crisis of the economic downturn is affecting the book world on the other side of the Atlantic, too. Minotauro looks strong, which is welcome news, but a rival publisher is laying off 500 people. Ouch. Sales numbers are tanking worldwide. This is not good for folks like myself who depend on consumers’ disposable income.

"Hmmm," you're thinking. "Should I pay the rent or buy a new book? Pay the rent or, uh..." Tough call, right?

And yet Team Minotauro has an evil plan which fills me with excitement, gratitude, and hope. They’ve put a rush on Antídoto. The book will be out in January, their intent being to capitalize on the success of La Plaga. Also, as a major coup, because of Minotauro’s support for both titles, book stores across Spain have agreed to maintain their floor displays and/or prominent shelf placement of La Plaga well after the normal promotion period would have ended, all the way through the holiday shopping season, at which time Antídoto will join La Plaga in those eye-popping front-of-store displays.

Wow. Just wow. I freaking love these guys, and I have to say that packing up the family and moving to Europe suddenly seems like a viable option again.

Habla español, dude?

Labels: Antídoto, book sales, La Plaga, Minotauro, the writing life

I don't think I'll ever get tired of gorgeous book porn like this, but fortunately I'm almost out of pictures like this. ;)

In the meantime, I'm afraid it's true. The La Plaga tie-in vacation contest is over. It's won! José Garrido Calero will be enjoying an all expenses paid, seven days, six nights extravaganza for two all the way from Spain to beautiful Aspen, Colorado, where he and a companion of his choice will have a nice head-start over the rest of us to safe elevation when the machine plague breaks loose. Aieeeeeeyaaaargh! Run for the hills!

I want to thank the team at Minotauro for organizing such an incredible promotion campaign. Seriously. The mind croggles.

Labels: book contest, La Plaga, Minotauro

Here's another photo from Spain. I think this is a different store, because my super sleuthing skills have noted that the floor poster is peeling at one corner in this picture, which it was not in the other... and it's hard to imagine they'd have 40 books stacked up just to the right of the floor stand, which holds 30 copies itself... but the tables and the tile floor look much the same. Maybe this is the standard decor of the Spanish equivalent of Barnes & Noble?

All I can say is, "Gulp, look at that heap of lonely, unsold books!" This is an excellent problem to have, but, please, if you know anyone in Europe, tell 'em to hoof it over to Spain and grab several copies of La Plaga. We'd like to keep those units moving, please.

Labels: La Plaga, Minotauro, Spain

Here's another shot sent from my publisher Spain. The mind croggles. In fact, if I wasn't already happily married, I'd probably have to fly to Europe in order to begin dating this floor stand... or would I be more interested in the floor poster?

Hmm. They both seem to have every quality you look for in an inanimate object. Supportive. Eye-catching. Doesn't talk too much.

I'm a good, honest guy and I don't like to two-time anybody, but still, maybe a little trial period of dating *both* displays would really be in everyone's best interest...

Labels: La Plaga, Minotauro, Spain

Well, if I was in Spain, I'd be walking through a book store one day when I'd suddenly have a coronary from sheer explosive joy. Holy cow guts, dude!!!

Last night my publisher at Minotauro forwarded another giant pack of jpgs, some of which I'll be inflicting upon you because, well, they're like baby photos to me.

Here, for example, is that gorgeous hardcover of La Plaga hanging out in copious numbers with the likes of John Grisham and James Patterson... ;)

Labels: Holy cow guts, La Plaga, Minotauro, Spain

This photo is of the four-color newspaper ads placed by Minotauro announcing the August 27 release of La Plaga. Yes, newspaper ads!!!

Q: Will you be moving to Europe?

A: No, the Carlsons won’t be packing up our worldly belongings and moving to the coast of Spain any time soon, although it’s nice to feel like we might be welcome. I’ve had several emails lately about Minotauro’s brain-poppingly awesome campaign in support of La Plaga as well as Piper Verlag’s sweet edition of Nano, and, yes, it’s deeply gratifying to receive that kind of attention for my work.

It’s especially great because we were nearly unable to sell Plague Year at all. Sit down here by the fire. Have a marshmallow. Wanna hear a spooky story?

I know that a lot of you are would-be or beginning writers like me. Unfortunately, what I’m about to tell you isn’t atypical. A few people find success right out of the gate. They sell their first novel or their first trilogy on their first try. Most of us have to scratch and claw a lot more than that.

Plague Year was finished early in 2003. (That’s right, I wrote the damn thing before Crichton’s Prey or ABC’s blockbuster Lost). It sold in May 2006 (and eventually saw print in August 2007). During that wait, five out of seven editors said they wanted the book but that their boss, the publisher, wouldn’t let them buy it. Why? Because first novels rarely earn out. Nobody’s ever heard of you, and there will be 399,999 other titles published the same year, and it’s practically unheard of to see any sort of promotion effort, so they just put the books out there and see if they sink or swim. Most of ‘em sink. Selling that first book is as tough as rusty bent nails in your feet. With gasoline. And maybe ants. You get the picture.

Oh, and the other two editors simply reported that they didn’t like the book. After holding onto it for several months in total silence. Because there are always so many goddamn other books on their desk that they can barely find the time to peek at a cover letter. But let’s not get sidetracked bemoaning the fate of editors!

In a lot of ways, that long, brutal wait did me good in the end. Sure, I nearly gave up writing and got a real job about twenty-three times. Yes, Diana and I had many agonizing conversations about how the heck we were ever going to support ourselves. Indeed, I considered putting my head in the microwave oven. All we kept hearing out of New York was “We love this book but there’s no room in our list for a first novel right now.” What the heck more could I be doing???

I kept writing and I kept getting better. I made more short fiction sales. I made more contacts. Many of them were heroic enough to step up and help, which is why you see such an unusually high number of top-level endorsements on the cover.

When Plague Year finally sold in a minor bidding war, those endorsements, in turn, helped Ace to decide to get behind the book with a couple ads and a lot of expensive display space. This also helped secure an unusually high number of pre-orders of the book. I’m still a long, long, loooong ways from likes of the major bestsellers, but, for a first novel, especially a science fiction novel in mass market paperback, Plague Year did well in North America. Not phenomenal, but well. Even very well if you’re feeling generous. Which in turn helped lead me to the audiobook with Recorded Books and come to the attention of some overseas publishers. Who went a little nuts.

Why? I’ll talk more about this another time. I do have some Deep Thoughts With Jeff about why Plague Year might be even more popular overseas than at home.

In the meantime, it’s awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. I’m grateful and excited and I’ll probably be sleeping in my Minotauro gas mask and the ALTAMENTE CONTAGIOSO ribbon when they arrive in the mail. While hugging two or three copies of the sexy German edition.

Probably you don’t want to be here for that. ;)

Labels: mailbag, Minotauro, Piper Verlag

I'm told now that there are any number of book store windows with these scary, eye-grabbing displays everywhere in Spain.

Yes, that's a giant rack of hard cover books behind the posters and the freaky yellow hazmat tape... and I don't know if I've ever seen anything so beautiful in my life! Except, you know, maybe the births of our children. And my wife. Possibly the guy who performed my appendectomy. Oh, and the ski patrol at Bear Valley after I broke my leg in three places between ankle and knee on a lonely hillside down in their extreme Grizzly Bowl.

In fact, my publisher at Minotauro informs me that they created "over 400 floor stands for the most important book shops with a very striking red light in the middle of the gas mask and posters." Almost better, she also writes, "Fifteen days before launch, the book reached journalists and booksellers in a black bag sealed with a yellow adhesive tape on which you can read the words CAUTION. Inside we enclosed a gas mask and the book."

If everyone who was publishing Plague Year was doing it with such enthusiasm, Diana and I would be bazillionaires by now with an assortment of vacation homes in Vail, the Grand Caymans, and the surface of the moon.

Excuse me while I go faint now.

Labels: holy shit, La Plaga, Minotauro, Spain

A friend of mine was unable to stand the suspense of the blogs posted on the site created by my Spanish publisher, Minotauro... blogs supposedly written by Ruth Goldman. She asked a neighbor to translate, and here's what we've got! My mind is still croggling. It looks to me like fiction based on fiction, because this Ruth's background is not the background of *my* Ruth.

What you read here is a blog entry from an alternate universe!



The exhaustion of the week is already beginning to take its toll and my capacity for concentration is not the same. The pressure that the Pentagon exercises on its team of scientists is enormous and although I adore my work, one of these days Iʼll leave my eyes in one of these microscopes. Once again yesterday, I took with me all the documentation on the latest advances with the nano-robots home and, when I wanted to give an account, I woke up lying on the sofa surrounded by files and papers. I have promised myself that I would never again bring work home with me. This time Iʼll do it.

Washington DC is a great city but at this time of year, when the good weather begins, that is when I most regret not living in California, by the sea, enjoying endless walks on the beach. If I listened (?) to my mom, sheʼd start in and throw my scare and empty private life in my face again.

This morning I called mom saying that I was going to go the doctor, that there were days that small wounds would appear on my hands that had scared and healed. Since dad died, these are the typical situations in which I feel somewhat guilty being alone. I told him that I will try to see this through soon however, with the load of work that we have ultimately, itʼs not going to be done easily. Perhaps in the month of July I can manage to escape for a few days.

Today they have assured me that this week the reports on the last advances in military nanotechnology developed by NASA will arrive. They have done a lot of experimentation with this technology and to date; the results have not been too encouraging. This time it seems that the last tests have been successful. I am anxious to see what these little bastards are capable of.

Labels: blog, La Plaga, Minotauro, Ruth Goldman

Nobody ever tells me anything… but what a brain-croggling surprise today! We received excellent news in this afternoon's mail. The postman brought several copies of Plague Year in Spanish, from European publisher Minotauro. Originally my agents were informed that Minotauro would be releasing the book in trade paperback, which was exciting enough for a guy who’s being published in mass market paperback in his home country. Instead, La Plaga is a gorgeous hard cover with textured embossing for the title. It has sweet cover art, a full color author photo on the inside flap, plus maps and freaky biohazard warning symbols…

La Plaga is Minotauro’s number one title for September 2008, even ahead of reprints by Ray Bradbury and J.R.R. Tolkien.

But it gets better.

Check out this web site they’ve put together:
http://www.scyla.com/laplaga/

Not only are there three original book trailers made at their expense (my favorite two are now posted on my site as well), they’ve also created a series of blog entries by Ruth Goldman, the fictional nanotech researcher who is one of the novel’s main characters. In addition to this wildly cool insanity, their site offers additional blogs, a nanotechnology video and related biotech links, a Facebook fan group to join, and contests with cash prizes up to 100 Euros, including a competition for the best theme-related photos submitted by readers.

But it still gets better.

(insert drooley-faced shock and glee here)

Enclosed with each copy of La Plaga is a glossy full-color bookmark with stark white mountaintops on a black background, portions of the cover art, and the book’s tagline (loosely translated) in scary, broken letters: “Will a vaccination cause the end of humankind?”

There is also yet another contest promoted on the back on the bookmark. You can find the same contest on the web site, too…

Get this. If you correctly answer several questions about La Plaga, you will be entered in a raffle drawing. The grand prize is an all-expenses-paid, seven days, six nights vacation to Aspen, Colorado, where you will be safe from the machine plague!

!!!!! Holy flaming dead monkeys on a shish kabob !!!!!

I’ve never even heard of such a thing as a promotional tie-in for a book, and all I can say is that I hope I’m not excluded from entering, because I’ve never skied in Aspen and I do know the answers to the contest. ;>

I don’t believe Minotauro has much distribution in North America — their markets are in the predominantly Spanish-speaking world, of course — but La Plaga is readily available all over the Internet. If you know anyone who’s fluent in Spanish, make them your friend now. Go! Go and read! This may be your only chance of reaching 3,024 meters before it’s too late!

Labels: contests, La Plaga, Minotauro, promotion campaign, Spanish edition Plague Year

I'm very excited to share these book trailers created by my Spanish publisher, Minotauro, in support of the recent release of their version of Plague Year. I think they're nicely creepy in the same way as one of my favorite horror films, 28 Days Later. Check 'em out!

Labels: La Plaga, Minotauro, Spanish Plague Year