Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The Writing Life: The thrill

After spending about three years from beginning the research to printing the manuscript, I got my author's copies of The Judas Brief today, and I'm thrilled. One of the true delights for most authors is finally getting your hands around the published version. The book author lives through a long gestation period and there is a huge emotional investment and much stress and strain in both the writing and production processes. Much of the journey is outside of the author's control and it can be frustrating to experience unforeseen delays. Even though I have published several other books, I still get the same charge out of this stage of the project. Of course, I wouldn't mind lots of sales, fantastic praise, and the respect of all scholars in the field. I guess I can wait til tomorrow for that :)

The book was due in the publisher's warehouse on Friday last, and on that day, by what means I know not, the status of my book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble went from "Not yet published" to "not in stock." The distribution channels probably take two or three weeks to get from the warehouse to the bookstores, so you should all probably start lining up outside your local store now so you can be at the front of the huge lines.

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