My Interview on NPR - Cleveland

I was privileged to be a guest on Dee Perry's "Around Noon" show today.

My interview on News 8 New Haven: Good Morning Connecticut

What a Week!

It's been an incredible first full week since my book was released. Highlights included newspaper and magazine reviews, interviews, and a television segment filmed right here in my office. Best of all, I received wonderfully enthusiastic emails from complete strangers kind enough to take the time and tell me why they liked the book. 

I want to thank everyone who has been so enthusiastic in their comments and support.

I've also been fortunate to get some excellent attention... most recently from People magazine, which named Bill Warrington's Last Chance to its "Good Read" section in the August 23 section. If you're interested in reading what others have to say about the book, you can find recent reviews here.

 This week looks to be just as exciting. I'm pleased to be featured on Mia Starr's unique and inspirational blogs, Four Days a Week. Check out "Monday Musings" for a conversation with... moi. Thank you, Mia!

Speaking of blogs, I'm also honored to be a guest blogger this week at "The Author's Desk" on the Penguin USA site. Today's post: "Thanks, Not for Us."

Finally August...

... and after more than a year since I learned that Viking would be publishing it, Bill Warrington's Last Chance will finally be released. I don't mind saying that this has been one of the longest years of my life, but also one of the most rewarding.

There's no way to describe my feelings, which range from elated to terrified, so I'll just focus on what's ahead this month.

1. Release of the book. If you haven't ordered it online from your favorite bookstore, it will hit the bookshelves later this week or early next.
2. Television interview on August 21, New Haven, Connecticut. (News 8/WCTX MY TV9 -- 7:30 a.m. Yep, that's 'a.m.' )
3. First "official" book reading on August 22 at the LaGrua Center in Stonington, Connecticut.
4. Readings/signings at the Barnes and Noble, Minneapolis and at the Borders-Westlake, near my hometown of Lakewood, Ohio.

And away we go...

We Interrupt this Book Release (Two Weeks!) Countdown...

... to bring you this guest post.

Apparently I'm not the only one thinking about ways to leverage the online world for book promotion. The following observations come from a writer who noticed an interesting fact here. My guest wishes to remain anonymous, but has agreed to let me share what I thought were some interesting projections on the look-and-feel of publishing in the future:

The absolute favorite pastime of the 400 million or so Facebook users is: gaming. Not fan pages. Zynga, creators of FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and other highly popular and profitable Facebook games just received between $100-200 million from Google -- an investment designated to help Google develop their own games.

Does this affect publishing and book promotion? It could. If gaming is already supplanting Fan pages as an activity of choice for Facebookers, perhaps publishers and book promoters of all stripes -- even authors -- will need to create online games that lead their readers to the books. For novels of action, suspense, sci-fi, or horror, this is easy enough to imagine; for delicate character studies and finely-observed literary explorations, it could take considerably more imagination. And yet this may be the new way to go. For example:

• Play "The Passage." Fight the bio-vampire monsters of Justin Cronin's blockbuster debut by night, grow your community by day. Win "power batteries" for night lights. Collect points to buy better weaponry.
• Enter "Wolf Hall." Become a great historic figure, such as Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, or Thomas More as the conflicts between church and state play out in 16th-century England, a la Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winner.
• Navigate through the "Flying Insect Kingdom." Various game paths could take you to Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees" or "Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" or even William Golding's "The Lord of the Flies." Add a John Updike novel to represent the "WASP" element if the game creators want to show how smarty-pants literary they can be.

Talk about interactivity! This could be the next promotion wave linking bookseller and reader.