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Deep in the grubby sump of one of those so-called ‘Social Media’ sites, there is a clump of aging comics fanboys called The Really Very Serious Alan Moore Scholars’ Group, known to its sad and lonely adherents as TRVSAMSG. When they’re not annotating everything in sight, or calling down ancient evils on the heads of […]

Guess what? I got into Princeton!

Wait a minute, though. Before you go shining up a class ring for me and calling Goldman Sachs to tell them they’ll have a new CEO in a few years, I should probably qualify that statement. I wasn’t invited to Princeton the University. I was invited to Princeton the Children’s Book Festival.

Which, of course, is even better!

Here are the details:

Saturday, September 8, 2012
11am–4pm
Princeton Public Library
65 Witherspoon Street
Princeton, NJ 08542 

I’ll be hanging out in the Purple Tent, signing copies of DWEEB and The Only Ones. We can chat about The Riverman Trilogy, maybe talk some sports or movies, and perhaps solve some of the world’s problems. Hope to see you there!

In less than four weeks, the paperback version of The Only Ones hits shelves. It’s hard to believe my odd little book is almost one year old. Soon it will be talking and walking and before I know it, I’ll be bailing it out of jail after it gets caught spray-painting Turk 182 on a highway overpass and…oh boy…I’m getting a little teary-eyed just thinking about it…

But that’s all in the future. For now, we celebrate. And in that spirit, I’m giving away some signed hardcover copies of The Only Ones. Want one? Well it’s ridiculously easy to get one. Here are the requirements:

1. You have to be able to read. Sorry toddlers. Sorry Jerri Blank. But to get a free copy, you have to click here and read a PDF of the opening chapter.
2. You must have a blog. And after you’ve read the opening chapter, you must post a link to that chapter on your blog. You must also post this picture of the cover and a link to buy the book (I prefer Indiebound). I won’t hate you if you write a few words about what you read, or if you embed this book trailer or that book trailer, or if you provide a link to this page…but that extra stuff is entirely up to you.
3. Finally, you should email me and let me know you’ve done these things. Of course, you should also provide me with an address where I can send the book. I can send it to you, to a pal, to a school, to a library–anywhere, as long as it’s in the U. S. of A. and can accept U.S. postal deliveries.

That’s it and that’s all. If you don’t have a blog, why not read the opening chapter anyway? Don’t cost nothin’. Perhaps you’ll like it and you’ll want to help spread the word. Then we can all take to Twitter, take to Facebook, take to the streets, for crying out loud. No one takes to the streets anymore. Let’s bring that back.

I’ll be giving away copies as long as supplies last. If interest is rabid enough, I might replenish the supplies, but there’s no guarantee of that. So get it while the gettin’ is good. And thanks for doing your part.

Today The Only Ones is released. I’ll be running around reminding everyone of this fact because I want you to read the darn thing. Forgive me if I even show up at your house with a sandwich board and a blow horn. A man must do what a man must do. Now there’s plenty of information about The Only Ones on this web site, and I encourage you to read and watch and listen to it all. But today, the blog will be dedicated to the people who made this book happen and continue to make it “happenin’!”

Most authors include acknowledgements, and it’s always nice to read about the people who helped turn one person’s words into something lovely and tangible and available at your local bookstore. But as an author, choosing acknowledgements can be a bit of a nerve-racking experience. Part of you wants to thank everyone, from the friendly UPS guy who delivered all the marked-up manuscripts to the friendly obstetrician who delivered you into this world. Another part of you wants to cast a light upon the select handful of people who spent hours with the book, giving their best to make it better. It’s the big vs. small wedding debate. Neither is right. The guest list is always hard.

In my book, I went with the “small wedding,” but that doesn’t mean these were the only people who had a hand in the creation of The Only Ones. I’d like to expand the list here:

In July 2009, a painting called The Mainland by Jamie Wyeth sparked my first ideas for the book. In the year and a half of writing and editing that followed, there were countless other inspirations, 99 of which I’ve cataloged on Twitter via a #99inspirations hashtag. You can see them all here.

Cate Starmer, my astoundingly wonderful wife and greatest friend, is also my #1 fan and she’s always the first to read my work. In September 2009, I showed her the opening chapters to what was then called The Lonely Ones and she offered ideas and encouragement and the assurance that she believed in this book, and in me, and in us. She is, as I like to say, a wonder.

Stephanie Sun, then an assistant at Weed Literary and now an agent to be reckoned with, was the next person to read the beginnings of the book. She astounded me when she called it “beautiful” and confirmed that perhaps we had something here.

Elisabeth Weed, the super agent who so valiantly plucked me from obscurity, added to Stephanie’s praise and provided some invaluable suggestions regarding pacing and characterization. Then she boldly took the book to the streets.

Michelle Poploff, a legendary editor who has worked on bestsellers and Newbery winners (and who has written her own books), took a chance

I should have known better. When I received a mysterious email with a link to an unnamed video, I should have trashed the thing. It didn’t look like SPAM, but hackers are becoming more sophisticated these days and can transmit a virus quicker than a kindergarten class after a field trip to the consumption ward. Actually, I would have been lucky if it was just a virus. The link led to something far more insidious than that. It led to…

Well, let me start by reminding you that about a year ago I had a run-in with two of the most ruthless book critics on the circuit. You can read about it here. I have since recovered from the incident, but the video below has resurrected all those feelings: the fear, the shame, the hunger to eat a jar of peanut butter and a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. The only thing I have done in the last 17 hours is sit by a window, sighing and watching the rain trickle down the glass. After watching this, you may be tempted to the same:

Borders has fallen. The e-book has placed a pox-filled blanket in the arms of librarians and Chinese printing presses and would-be assassins who like to underline passages and dog-ear their paperbacks. Marketing budgets are dwindling to nothing. Lakes are turning blood red. And authors are left wondering “what in the sam-heck is a wordsmith supposed to do to get the kids to read his tale about misfits building a giant machine in the wake of apocalypse?”

Simple. BLOG TOUR!

To those out of the loop, a blog tour (or web-log junket, if you must) consists of an author posting interviews and musings on the blogs of like-minded writers and critics in an effort to reach a larger audience for his/her book. Blog tours have been proven to increase sales by 2,037%!

Now, if I’m going to do a blog tour in support The Only Ones, I’m not going to half-ass it or go the typical route. I want this thing to have pyrotechnics, inflatable pigs, upside down drumming–everything except Hell’s Angels getting all stabby. But for that, I need your help. So I’m calling on bloggers near and far to join me or, more specifically, to invite me over to their blog, where I will do any of the following things:

• Participate in an Eating Contest! You name the food item (anything is game, so long as it’s chicken wings). Then we set up a Skype video chat. We stare each other down as we scarf large quantities of chow. Ten minutes. Dirty looks allowed. Marc Bittman and Michael Pollan will be the referees, and they will be contractually obligated to say things like “gentleman, start your small intestines” and “plop plop fizz fizz, o what a battle this is!”  If you insist on eating fried worms, then Thomas Rockwell will be the judge. But he must be dressed in a neon green bookworm costume, and refer to me as “The Golden Pancreas.”  When all is said and done and the champion is crowned, I will write about the experience in a ten-part series on your blog. The series will be titled: We Were Hungry Once…And Young.
• Write  a Love Letter to Your Crush! If you spend most of your day blogging, then chances are you’re a little unlucky in love. Rest easy Miss/Mr. Lonelyhearts, because I am ready, willing and able to pen a missive that will win hearts and minds. We will address it to that someone special and I fill it with mixed metaphors and fiery loins (STD-free, of course). Try this sample out for size: “From your bushes, I have been watching you sleep. From behind this computer screen, I have been frantically Googling, memorizing the addresses of your exes and printing out turn-by-turn directions and streetview pics so that escape routes are clear. From the corner of my soul, where I keep the scalped plastic dolls and the memories of that one crazy summer and the riverside and Boxcar Joe and the pinky swear that was a held a little longer than I was comfortable with and the hand-dug grave that was supposed to be “deep enough,” I reach out to you, and ask you to be my love, and I pledge my ever lasting devotion to you, in this life and in the lives that follow, including the one where we are reincarnated as frolicking ferrets. Did I tell you I have ferrets?”
• Time Travel! This is gonna require some physics. But hey, I believe in you. Think about it. People blog about food, movies, dati
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It’s less than 50 days until The Only Ones invades your neighborhood bookstore and your online dealers of tall tales. And out there in the world there are faint rumblings that something is afoot. Yes, there are a few interesting developments regarding the book and I shall detail them below:

1. Kirkus Reviews, the self-proclaimed “world’s toughest book critics” put their dukes down and held their hugging arms out. They had some lovely things to say about the book, including, “Both literary and engaging, this is the kind of book readers will want to return to for new discoveries.” Thanks, Kirk (I can call you Kirk now, right?).
2. The Junior Library Guild has named the book as one its Fall 2011 Selections. It’s an honor that, according to their pyramid of power, is only bestowed upon a small percentage of books. It has real world implications too. It means the book will find its way onto thousands of public and school library shelves…and that is a very good thing indeed. Domo arigato, Ju-Li-Gu.
3. Over at the fantastic blog Mother Reader fellow kidlit author Matthew Cody and I were recently interviewed about darkness in middle-grade novels. Matthew is the author of Powerless and the upcoming Dead Gentleman, both stories of derring-do of the highest order that draw their inspiration from comic books and classic yarns and the lives of scabby-kneed junior adventurers. Have a look at our hopefully amusing musings.
4. There’s one more week to enter the contest at Goodreads to win a signed advance reader copy of the book, which will be sent to the lucky winner a full month before the official copies tear their shirts off and go marauding through the streets.
5. Finally, a page dedicated to The Only Ones is now hidden on this very site. It’s not hidden very well. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is click on the link above and you’ll be whisked right to it, where you’ll find a few easter eggs, the trailer, a longer summary of the book, and even the opening chapter. Share it all with your pals, why don’t you?