Blue and White
I was working on invitations to readings this week and, for the first time, printed out the cover of Shimmer. I’d seen the cover on the Web, emailed it, even looked at it on my iPhone. But I’d never printed it out. I like the cover even more than I did before.
The blue, which on the screen sometimes looked vaguely baby blue, isn’t baby blue at all. There’s almost a texture to the blue, a million pinpoints of blue and white. I keep staring at the print. Feeling the card. Coming up with excuses to dig it out of the pile on my desk and look at it again.
I’m at a strangely busy yet helpless stage in this process. So many decisions, the cover the least of them, have already been made. Book reviews in some cases have probably been written. Stores have already placed their orders for books. All of that is underway no matter what I do.
Yet there is so much to do. Readings, promotions, a summer of travel. Do I have a suitcase that works? Have I updated LibraryThing? How will I update the Web site from the road? Is there one more thing I should do that I haven’t done?
This week is Twitter. I’ll be sending out sentences from the first chapter on Twitter for about a week. Link them back to the full chapter online. We’ll see how it goes.
In other news, Shimmer was picked as an IndieNext selection for July by IndieBound, the marketing arm of the American Booksellers Association, essentially meaning they’ll also be working to promote and recommend the book, especially in independent bookstores.
I have a short story out, in Raritan, a literary journal published by Rutgers University. The story, “Dreams Where I Can Fly”, is in large part the first chapter of Shimmer, though the ending is very different than the book.
According to the countdown clock, it’s just 35 days till the book is published. At least officially. In truth, the book will be available a few weeks before that. Book publishing is strange that way. There’s an official publication date, but it’s only a month, not a date. And even then, the books almost always come out in the month before the official publication month. I’m sure there’s a reason for this that goes back to crop cycles or the accessibility of shipping routes through the Rockies. Something.
But, I do know that since I’m reading at Rock Point Books in Chattanooga on June 18, the books will at least be in that bookstore on that day. That may be the first place where I see them.
I actually think the books have been printed by now, sitting in some warehouse somewhere. Waiting. It makes me a little light-headed. All those covers. All those little pinpoints of blue and white.
