Ketchup

"The Niners are set to take the snap. Here comes the ball... It's a fake! It's a fake! The kicker grabs the ball and runs for the strong side of the line! I think he's going to make it!"

That's what the announcer would be saying if this was a football game. I have yet to see cover art from my American publisher, who has the book, but here's some nice, spooky, eye-grabbing cover art from my German publisher, who doesn't have the book. Go figure. Fortunately, the cover makes sense with the storyline. Piper Verlag did ask me what the book is about and clearly they're not messing around. They've got INFEKT slated for February 2010. It's ready to fly. Except for the pages that, you know, go between the covers. We'll translate that stuff soon. :)

Labels: Infekt, Piper Verlag, PLAGUE ZONE

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

Continuing in the vein of Nobody Ever Tells Me Anything… which lately has been a happy complaint… the German edition of Plague Year, retitled Nano, has been in stores in Europe since August 26th. One of Piper Verlag’s lead titles for September 2008, they’re backing Nano "as part of a special marketing campaign aiming to link phantastic and mainstream novels in order to widen the range for 'phantastic thrillers' in the both the mainstream and the science fiction/fantasy market."

Now that sounds extraordinarily cool, right!?

For those of you who aren’t on the other side of the Atlantic, the book is also readily available online. Here is a link to Amazon Germany.

Or, for example, here is a link to Süddeutsche Zeitung Shop!

Labels: Nano by Jeff Carlson, Piper Verlag, Plague Year German edition