The ARCs (advance reading copies) of A Darkness Forged in Fire arrived this week and I feel like a proud parent. I’ve constrained myself, so far, from carting one around with me wherever I go, but it hasn’t been easy. I wish I could show it here, but I don’t know how to load images yet. Anyway, in my very biased opinion, it looks darn spiffy. I imagine most folks here know this, but ARCs are used to generate buzz in advance of the actual pub date. They are sent to reviewers at newspapers, magazines, websites etc., select books stores, buyers for various accounts, other publishers for subrights like translation rights in foreign markets, and even Hollywood. They can also be used to increase awareness as giveaways at conventions. In fact, Pocket will be doing that at New York ComicCon and BEA this year.

On a more technical note, an ARC is typically printed as a trade paperback on a lower grade paper and sometimes, though not always, features the cover in color on the cover, although added effects such as embossing, foil, die cuts etc. are often not done at this stage. On the back cover you’ll often find early blurbs, cover copy giving a brief synopsis of the book and marketing information which is aimed mainly at the accounts (but also signals to reviewers the level of support the book is receiving from the publisher).

The ARC is comprised of the first set of page proofs which means the book has been edited and copyedited from the original manuscript, but is by no means in final form. Changes big and small can still be made to the book even after the ARC has gone out, although usually the revisions are minor. For this reason the publisher prints huge warnings on the cover stating:

UNCORRECTED PROOFS – SPECIAL ADVANCE READER’S EDITION – NOT FOR SALE
(Please do not quote for publication without checking against the finished book.)

By sending ARCs out months in advance it hopefully allows for that all important buzz to form. If things start to roll the accounts have time to look at the number of copies they’ve ordered and increase it (or decrease if the buzz is gawd-awful.) Naturally, I’m hoping the book gets a positive response.

Cheers,

Chris

I guess my Commonwealth upbringing is starting to pay off. S&S UK has just bought the rights to the Iron Elves series. I knew the series was being shopped overseas, but more or less forgot all about it. It was a very nice surprise when I heard the news.

Cheers,

Chris

I’m always intrigued when a writer talks about their craft. Perhaps even more interesting, however, is when they discuss their regimen. All the skill and talent in the world is so much mist in the wind without the drive and sheer-bloody-mindedness to sit your butt down in front of the computer or note pad day after week after month after year. John Grisham, in a CNN interview, describes how he started writing here . I’ve copied the most pertinent part further down. As for myself, (and when I am in my routine) I usually get up around 6am, scroll through the news on the web, go for a run, shower, breakfast then write for an hour or so before clocking into work around 8:30 – 9:00. What about you?

Excerpt from the Grisham interview:

When he first started writing, Grisham says, he had “these little rituals that were silly and brutal but very important.”

“The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I’d jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away. And I had to be at my desk, at my office, with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week.”

His goal: to write a page every day. Sometimes that would take 10 minutes, sometimes an hour; ofttimes he would write for two hours before he had to turn to his job as a lawyer, which he never especially enjoyed. In the Mississippi Legislature, there were “enormous amounts of wasted time” that would give him the opportunity to write.

“So I was very disciplined about it,” he says, then quickly concedes he doesn’t have such discipline now: “I don’t have to.”

If you live in New York (and possibly other big cities) you may have noticed how people de-animate when they are in public. They walk with purpose, look straight ahead, and ignore everything and everyone around them. I think we all do it to varying degrees in this city. I suppose you have to. Essentially, we delete 99.99999% of humanity from our world view. How would you ever get where you’re going otherwise? Conversely, and this is the bit non-New Yorkers maybe wouldn’t get, when we see someone we know, arms are outflung, voices raised and eyes widen as we smile and hug and remark how truly amazing it is to see someone on a sidewalk on a Tuesday at 4:15 in the afternoon. We say how great it is to see each other, and it is, because up to that point we really hadn’t perceived a single soul.

Sorry, bad pun. The ARC (advanced reading copy) for A Darkness Forged in Fire arrives the middle of this month. In essence, this is the book in first pages, bound in trade paperback format with a draft of the cover. It’s aimed primarily for reviewers, blurbers, store accounts and subrights and as such notes among other things marketing, publicity and co-op plans. As it’s not the final version they stamp “Not Final Version” and “Do Not Quote From This Version” and various other warnings on the cover. By sending them out in February the hope is that reviewers get enough time to read and write up their review to coincide with the pub date in July. Of course, you hope the review is positive, but that’s a subjective decision made by the reader. ARCs also go to certain buyers at major chains and stores/people of note/sway in the field with the hopes that they read it, like it, and then champion it. I sound like Obama, but it’s all about hope. If you can get a few people behind it, this can lead to a bigger buy by one of the chains. That can in turn spur the other chains to do the same and things build from there.