After months of focusing on finishing the book, putting it into production, and working on logistics everybody is busy focusing on YOU–the readers. How can we get out word about the book? How can we get me to your hometown (or nearby)? How can we reward the patience and loyalty of existing readers and bring new readers into the experience?
One of the ways is for me to go on the road and talk about the book. That’s what I’m doing this weekend in NYC, where I spoke to librarians about the trilogy and signed some advance galleys for them so they can recommend the All Souls Trilogy to patrons who might be interested. On Saturday (5/31), I’ll be meeting with readers at Book Con in NYC. And the lucky readers who come to the panel I’m participating in with Lev Grossman and Tina Jordan from Entertainment Weekly will find a special treat awaiting them: Diana’s commonplace book (pictured here).
This was a special treat that Viking/Penguin cooked up in the Advertising and Promotion Department. Lynn Rogan and Jennifer Mears spent weeks getting this little beauty just right, and I helped out by generating the content of the book and being a nit-picky historian about details (like where the folio numbers were placed). When I received the first mock-up of the book I cried. Seriously. Some of you may remember I posted on Twitter that I’d received something from Viking that rocked my world. You assumed it was a copy of THE BOOK OF LIFE, but it wasn’t. It was this! It was absolutely amazing to have something I’d imagined brought to life with such skill and dedication.
Inside, there are all the pages Diana describes in SHADOW OF NIGHT and more: a floorplan of the Old Lodge, snippets of poetry, some passages from a grimoire, astrological insights. It’s a mini-record of Diana’s few days in Woodstock before she and Matthew left for Sept-Tours and it’s accurate down to the splotches of ink, the faint traces of plants she pressed into the pages, and the color of the cover (the sticker is removable!). There are even blank pages, so you can put your own commonplaces in it, if you are lucky enough to receive one: notes of births and deaths, passages from favorite books, books you want to read. You’ll be walking in Diana’s footsteps when you do!
Diana’s commonplace book isn’t for sale. The only way to get one is to see me at Book Con or another promotional event where the book is being given away, entering a blogger contest (there are a few now and will be even more leading up to July 15) that features Diana’s commonplace book, or entering a Viking giveaway. The first of those will take place today. CORRECTION: they have posted on Twitter, and if you retweet their post by 5 pm you will be entered in the prize competition. Find them @VikingBooks on Twitter and retweet the relevant post and you’re entered. Not on Twitter? Get on Twitter or wait for another contest!
It was wonderful to be able to put THE BOOK OF LIFE into librarians’ hands on Thursday, and it will be just as fun to see readers with Diana’s commonplace book on Saturday. Enjoy your weekend and see you back here next week with some more songs from THE BOOK OF LIFE playlist and further news. —Deb
