Butterfly time

DOGLAND's getting close, plus my weekly shareables: dog sculptures, rat selfies, and a book on George and Tammy

We are officially in the Coming Soon phase of my book. DOGLAND will be out two months from yesterday, and things are speeding up behind the scenes. Soon, I believe, we’ll be announcing the official book launch event, and possibly a couple of other events. We’ve got some very cool banners for social media that will be rolling out soon. There is even a bit of DOGLAND swag that we have conjured up … I can’t wait for all of you Shedheads to see that.

Advance copies of the book are making their way to bookstores, potential reviewers and other folks in the book business. Last weekend I stopped by Main Street Books, a fantastic local bookstore in Davidson, NC, and one of the booksellers there was telling me how much she loved the book. That’s always good to hear, but extra special coming from someone who gets to choose from so many books coming in.

Last I heard, about 250 readers have signed up for my special preorder deal at Park Road Books—if you preorder from there, I will sign and inscribe your book however you like. That’s a big number and I’m deeply grateful. At the same time, I’d be thrilled if we could double or triple that number in these last two months. I want to wear out a case of Sharpies signing books for y’all. As I’ve said here before, preorders mean the world to authors—it’s a signal to the publisher that the book has a chance to catch fire. I know many of you have preordered through Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your favorite local store … I’m not privy to the numbers on those, but they mean just as much. I love all preorders equally.

If you’ve preordered already, or even if you haven’t, it would also help a great deal to tell your friends. Or even strangers! Our dear friend Julie Ritterskamp took a copy of the DOGLAND cover to Freedom Park the other day and asked random people with their dogs to pose with it:

I have no idea who this person is, much less the dog. But she now knows about DOGLAND because of Julie. (You are welcome to hire her for your publicity needs, but only after she’s done with my book.) A lot of our publicity efforts are designed to get me on media outlets where a lot of people can hear about the book at once. But I’m also a big believer in up close and personal, word of mouth. So if there are dog lovers in your life, let them know about this book.

Apologies for the hard sell. Part of it, of course, is that I worked on this book for a long time, and gave it my best, and I want people to read it. But it’s also nerves. We did a SouthBound Live event Thursday night at WFAE’s uptown building—great panelists, great crowd, great night. (There’s another one next month if you’re interested.) I’ve done a bunch of events over the years, as a speaker or moderator or whatnot. Once the thing actually starts, I’m fine. But beforehand I always get butterflies. This is the butterfly time for me with this book. I think it’s going to be fine, I believe it’ll find an audience, I hope readers will enjoy it … but you never know until it actually happens.

I’ve come to appreciate the butterflies. It means something interesting is about to happen. And that’s kind of what we live for, right? To find out what happens next?

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My weekly for WFAE was about how Charlotte is making life harder for the homeless.

2. Our station has also launched a daily news podcast called NEWSWORTHY that is well worth checking out.

3. I didn’t know until just a few days ago that Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires are getting divorced. My brother in words Kevin Van Valkenburg went to see Isbell in concert recently and wrote a beautiful piece about feeling the music in both new and timeless ways. (No Laying Up)

4. Donald Trump is the worst. But in the huge competition for second-worst, Mark Meadows has made a strong run for the front. (NYT Magazine)

5. DOG NEWS: From now until DOGLAND comes out, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: I learned that there’s a dog and cat sculpture garden in Miami … and it’s controversial! (Miami New Times)

6. More animal news, because there is never enough animal news: In an experiment, rats got addicted to taking selfies. They’re just like us! (NYT)

7. Thrilled to see that Tyler Mahan Coe, creator of the extraordinary country-music podcast COCAINE AND RHINESTONES, has turned his season on George Jones and Tammy Wynette into an upcoming book. Now I already know what I want for Christmas.

8. R.E.M. means so much to me, as I’ve written before, so I really enjoyed this Michael Idov piece on how actor Michael Shannon (sort of) got the band back together. (GQ)

9. Nick Cave: “If we are to call ourselves artists then we must avoid the myriad excuses that present themselves and do our job. Yes, the world is sick, and yes it can be cruel, but it would be a whole lot sicker and a whole lot crueler if it were not for painters and filmmakers and songwriters – the beauty-makers – wading through the blood and muck of things, whilst reaching skyward to draw down the very heavens themselves.” (The Red Hand Files)

10. YouTube find of the week: Three Belgian guys doing a gorgeous cover of John Hiatt’s “Have a Little Faith In Me.”
    

    Have a great week, everybody.