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Books Take a Long, Long, Long Time
I'm a writer and I live with a writer. I spend a lot of my time not writing, but waiting for stuff we wrote to actually come out in print (that is, with the part of me that isn't waiting for cheques to show up). I hate waiting.
The Secret Hour, the first book of Scott's new YA (Young Adult) trilogy Midnighters finally landed in bookstores across the USA this week. Two years after he wrote it. It's been the worst wait so far. Not that it's been the longest wait, just the most anticipated. (I wrote Battle of the Sexes in 1996. It was published six years later.)
I read The Secret Hour hot off our crappy, recalcitrant printer in Sydney, gobbling it up in one sitting. I loved it. The adolescent me would have loved it even more. I just knew that it was going to be successful. (No, I'm not going to share my track record on predicting books that are going to be huge—too depressing. Here's hoping Midnighters will end my losing streak.)
A year after Scott finished writing the book, it came out in uncorrected proofs—a bound edition aimed at generating early excitement amongst booksellers and reviewers. It generated a shitload of excitement for me and Scott too. It's beautiful. Normally proofs look like crap, with cardboard covers usually in pale cacky blue or yellow, with no art, just the title of the book, author, publisher and details about when it's coming out. The cover of the uncorrected proofs for Midnighters: the Secret Hour had the real art, not all silvery and shining like the hardcover edition, but the clocks, the rain drops and the shimmery figures of the midnighters were all there. The publisher had spent real money. If your publisher's spending money making the uncorrected proofs look good, odds are the book will look fantastic.
We felt like the book had already come out. To add to that feeling, Harper Collins printed an awful lot of those uncorrected proofs and we kept hearing from booksellers, reviewers, and other publishing people how much they loved the book and how sure they were that Midnighters was going to be a hit. But it still wasn't out. There was another year to wait.
As we often do—on account of wanting to earn money to pay
rent and eat and stuff—we filled in the waiting time writing.
Amongst a gazillion other novels, Scott knocked off the second Midnighters
book, Touching Darkness which is even more superb than
the first, and only heightened my impatient, restless, when-is-the-rest-of-the-English-reading-world-going-to-discover-how-damn-cool-this-book-is
feeling.
The answer to that question is now. This Monday Midnighters: the Secret Hour started showing up in shops in New York City (can't speak to the rest of the USA). The book is really and truly out, in actual book shops, and has received some actual reviews—all of them very positive (in Kirkus, as well as two in Locus). Things are starting to happen.
We went into Books of Wonder, a fabulous children's book shop on W18th Street in Manhattan. They had many copies: a stack prominently on display at the front of the store, and one copy as a staff pick behind the counter, where it can't help but catch the eye of anyone making a purchase. When Scott introduced himself to the manager, the guy was thrilled, kept telling us how excited he was about Midnighters, how certain he was that it would be one of the big hits of 2004. Very heady stuff.
Then we went home, and remembered the Publishers' Weekly review isn't out yet. Nor are many other important reviews. And of course we'll have no real clue about how the book is selling for ages. There'll be no sales figures for at least another six months, not to mention royalties.
Yet more waiting.
Fortunately we both have other books coming out and other books to be written. We'll get to wait our little hearts out over them too.
New York City, 4 March 2004
© 2004 Justine Larbalestier
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