Born Again

When I was 23 and struggling to get anyone to notice I’d written a novel, it annoyed the crap out of me to see so-called “Young Writer” prizes won by 35-year-old guys with no hair. In which parallel universe, I wanted to know, could those tottering old farts be considered young?

Which is why I’m so happy to be named among the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists (for Company). Somewhere out there, a curly-haired 23-year-old is muttering about the unfairness of it all. Suck it up, punk.

Me at the Sydney Writers Festival, free event: Saturday 5:30pm

[Company] [link] [12 comments]

Vote Early, Vote Often

Until recently I was a complete unknown in my home country of Australia, while enjoying in the US a level of fame I would characterize as slightly less completely unknown. This gripping irony unfolded last year when I switched local publishers to Scribe, a feisty upstart with the crazy idea of getting me to do some publicity.

So it was that I ended doing a lot of interviews in which I talked about how I did no interviews in Australia, and wasn’t that weird, what with me being slightly less completely unknown in the US and all. Scribe is planning to re-publish Syrup in a few months, and now my publicist is frantic because with that angle exhausted, there’s nothing interesting left about me.

I am now so slightly less completely unknown, in fact, that the State Library of Victoria—that’s my home state—even noticed I had a book published. This is exciting not just because it’s a great way to encourage people to read my book in a way that generates no sales. They’re also running a competition inviting you to vote for your favorite book.

I wasn’t sure it was ethical to ask my readership, the vast majority of whom reside outside Victoria, to vote for me in what seems intended as a purely local poll. But I asked Scribe, and they said, “Hell, yes. See if they can vote multiple times, too.” So I guess it’s okay.

In other local news, I’m doing a reading from Company at Brighton Library on Thursday 31st January 2008 at 6:30pm. I’m also reading my short story A Shade Less Perfect at the launch of The Sleepers Almanac on Wednesday 6th February 2008 at 6pm in the Bella Union Bar at Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon St, Carlton. Aloud, I mean. I’m not just sitting there, quietly turning the pages. I’m a professional.

[Company] [link] [23 comments]

Book Club With Your Boss

An anonymous reader writes in with a Company-related conundrum:

I read this book and promptly gave it to some of my work colleagues—I’m sure you hear this all the time. I wanted to buy a case to keep under my desk to hand out to people who came in my office.

Now my manager and some others have read it and they want me to come to their book club to lead a discussion! If you have any ideas to lead me into this land of discussing this with upper management who just happen to be members of this book club please let me know. I need to keep my job!

Hmm. Tough one. Perhaps, “What I got out of this book was a deep, abiding relief that our company is nothing like this. That’s why I hand it out to people at work; everyone enjoys stories that have nothing to do with their own lives. It’s pure escapism!”

One of the interesting things about corporate workplaces is that they turn otherwise decent human beings into… well, management. They’re not like that because they’re petty, deceitful scumbags. I mean, obviously that helps. But it’s the environment that encourages those personality traits. This could be a cry for help from your boss, who in a flash of self-discovery has thought, “My God, what have I become?” Your job at this book club, then, is clearly to reassure him/her that it’s only the other managers who are like that, and gather information that will be politically useful at your next performance evaluation.

[Company] [link] [6 comments]

Max in America 2007

One thing I’m looking forward to is discovering what wacky new security schemes US Customs has come up with since I last visited. In 2006 they’d added fingerprinting and digital mug shots. This time I’m thinking maybe they’ll swab my mouth or get me to sing the Pledge of Allegiance. Or maybe they have followed this route to its logical conclusion and now herd foreign visitors straight from the airport to prisons, where any of us not intending to commit terrorist atrocities can fill out applications to be released.

Wow, that was pretty cynical, even for me. I’m not sure if that struck the appropriately witty, feel-good note I want to promote a book tour. But anyway. I have dates! And here they are:

• Los Angeles, CA
  Sunday March 25th, 2007
• Denver, CO
  Monday March 26th, 2007
• Milwaukee, WI
  Tuesday March 27th, 2007
• Madison, WI
  Wednesday March 28th, 2007
• Chicago, IL
  Thursday March 29th, 2007
• Austin, TX
  Friday March 30th, 2007
• Phoenix, AZ
  Saturday March 31st, 2007
• Danville, CA
  Monday April 2nd, 2007

[ Tour Details Here ]

As usual, I expect any outrage over ill-considered dates, places, etc, to be directed at my publisher. Remember, they’re the ones organizing this stuff. I’m just turning up and cleaning out the mini-bars.

[Company] [link] [43 comments]

My Brilliant Publicity Schedule

It’s a big couple of months for my books. Here’s what they’re up to:

• USA & Canada

  The paperback is out March 13, and I tour two weeks later. The early word is that I’m headed to Los Angeles, Denver, Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, Austin, Phoenix, and San Francisco. So the result of that polite discussion seems to be that Phoenix beat out Dallas, Milwaukee supplanted Boston, and LA and Madison combined to defeat Ann Arbor. I’m not saying that necessarily reflects on the inherent worth of those places. But you could certainly read it that way.

  The dates and places should be confirmed shortly, and I’ll post ‘em here.

  Also in the US & Canada, an audio version of Syrup has been released. I wonder if that’s some kind of record, a publisher coming out with an audio version nearly eight years after the book. No, probably not. In fact it wouldn’t even be close. I don’t know why I brought that up.

• Australia & New Zealand

  I’ve spent most of the last year moaning about my publishing troubles in Australia. Because it really grates on me that in my home country I am near-completely unknown, while in the US I am near-completely unknown, but not quite so much. This has nothing to do with wanting recognition for my artistic achievements, you understand. It’s about impressing chicks. But now I have a publisher, Scribe, and they’ve been crazy busy organizing publicity ahead of the March 5th publication. Seriously, you want your publisher to be enthusiastic, but this is almost beyond that. Just today, they’ve sent me… let me check… eleven emails. I have conversations with them that go like this:

  Scribe: “Wow. Company. It’s such a great book.”
  Me: “Thanks.”
  Scribe: “I mean, seriously. I own ten copies. Not for publicity purposes. For myself.”
  Me: “Oh, that’s… keen.”
  Scribe: “Sometimes at night, I take off all my clothes and rub myself with the pages.”

  Well it wouldn’t surprise me. Anyway, the result is I’m doing a lot of Aussie media and book readings and festivals. Here’s what I have details for so far: the Como Writers Festival in Melbourne on the 17th and 18th of February, a Sydney book reading hosted by supercool comedian Wil Anderson on Friday March 16, the Sydney Writers Festival in May, and the Melbourne Writers Festival in August.

• The Netherlands

  The Dutch Company paperback is out in March, and the publisher has produced this incredibly slick Zephyr Holdings website. It’s got desktop wallpapers and email-your-friends cartoons and everything. I have no idea what they’re about, because they’re in Dutch. But I bet they’re frickin’ hilarious.

  Unfortunately I suspect that this means Company needs to sell about a million copies or Uniboek will collapse under the weight of its outlandish web design expenditure. But fingers crossed.

  They also seem to be re-publishing Jennifer Government under the title Logoland, and synchronizing the cover with Company’s. I love synchronized covers. They make me feel collectible.

• United Kingdom

  Still bugger all. Sorry.

[Company] [link] [45 comments]

Company in Hollywood and Oz

If you were wondering what that strange feeling you had recently was—a sensation like some great evil in the world had suddenly been put to rights—then I’m happy to explain: Company has got itself an Australian publication date.

About time, I know. It’s very weird to be published overseas but not at home. I wouldn’t mind if my book was completely ignored or flayed by critics, so long as people could at least find it in a bookshop. Well, I’d mind a little. No, you’re right, that would suck. But having Company unavailable in my home country really niggled at me this year. I’m very happy to be getting that fixed.

The details: it’ll be a A$29.95 paperback out March 2007 from Scribe Publications, available in Australia and New Zealand.

In film news, I spoke to Steve Pink recently—he’s the guy writing the Company screenplay. I gotta say, when the film rights sold to this book, I had no idea how it could be a movie. I mean, it was barely a novel. For me, it was more like colonic irrigation: by the end, I felt like I’d flushed out everything I had left to say about corporate life. But Steve described some scenes to me, and they sounded very funny. So now I’m intrigued.

Apparently if this film gets made, Jen and I get to fly first class to the premiere. Jen thinks this is the most exciting thing ever. Not the movie. The chance to fly first class.

[Company] [link] [19 comments]

Closer, my pet. Closer…

My publisher just made a big mistake. They e-mailed me a list of the places they’re thinking of sending me on my 2007 US book tour, and I said, “How about I put this on my web site and ask what people think?” And my publicist, Martin—I think he must be new; it’s the only explanation—said, “Good idea.”

What Martin fails to realize is that I have just cleverly arranged for everyone who will be upset that I’m not coming to their town to be angry at him instead of me.

What Martin should have done is what all my previous publicists did: present the schedule only when it’s nailed down. That way I’m left helplessly trying to explain to irate, neglected fans why I’m visiting four cities on the west coast but none between L.A. and New York.

Instead, what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a tentative schedule. And the publisher wants to know what you think. So go ahead! And remember: there’s no reason they couldn’t send me to every town in America, if they cared enough!

Okay, that’s not true. I was exaggerating for comic effect. The number of cities is probably fixed, due to financial reasons and the fact that I’m not that famous. But if you’ve got a good reason why they should send me to one place and not another, post in the comments here and Martin will read it.

Here’s the list:

• Boston
• Chicago
• Ann Arbor
• Dallas
• Austin
• Denver/Boulder
• San Francisco
• Either Madison or Los Angeles

It is actually very cool for a publisher to do this. In fact, I’ve never heard of one asking fans where they’d like an author to visit before.

Update: Whoa! That’s a lot of comments. I found out that Martin is on vacation this week, so I guess he’ll come back to a nice surprise. Wait, I mean, “violent argument.” That’s it.

[Company] [link] [188 comments]

Inscrutable Germans

In the comments of my last blog, member Ralf observed that there’s a German edition of Company coming out, and they’ve posted the cover online. I’m glad I have people like Ralf to tell me these things. He’s more up-to-date with what’s happening in my career than I am. From now on I’ll get him to write my blogs.

The German cover is very interesting, because I have absolutely no idea what it means. Now, I’m used to foreign publishers making inexplicable changes that I can only hope make more sense in their native language and culture. Especially if it’s the Germans, who are yet to publish a book of mine with anything even vaguely resembling the original title. (Syrup became “Fukk” and Jennifer Government is “Logoland”.) Because “chefsache” does not, as you might assume, mean “company.” It means “top priority case.”

My guess is that it must be common German management-speak, like “action items” or “Let’s take this offline” or “We’ve outsourced your job to India.” But the cover is more perplexing. I honestly can’t figure it out. And I’m usually good at this kind of thing. Once in high school I sat for an IQ test where they gave me sets of cards with pictures on them, and I was asked to arrange them to make logical stories. I scored lower on that test than anyone. My problem was that I kept seeing logical stories that weren’t there: I would arrange my cards in a sequence that made perfect sense to me—that spun tales of pathos and drama, of tragedy and triumph—and look proudly at the teacher only to see her eyes flick down to the answer sheet, and return, sympathetically, to meet mine. After that, they wouldn’t let me near sharp objects.

But this one is a mystery to me. Is that guy exploding? Why? And why is he wearing sunglasses? Help me out here: what do you think this cover means?

[Company] [link] [35 comments]

Paper Company

It’s still a long way off, but preparations are being made for the release of Company in paperback in the US. Here’s what I know: it’ll probably be March 2007, published by Vintage, and sport this nifty cover.

Publishers almost always change book covers from hardcover to paperback; I don’t know why. Maybe they hope that people with bad memories for titles will buy it twice. Jennifer Government was an exception, but only because I managed to convince them not to change it to this.

I think the donut cover was great, but I like this new one, too. It’s got a nice, dehumanizing note to it, and avoids showing anybody’s face (which I really hate). Also—although of course this doesn’t influence my feelings in any way—my name is kick-ass big.

There’s also talk of sending me on book tour in early April, although exactly where won’t be decided for a while yet. (If you are particularly keen to bring me to your city, it is apparently quite effective to visit a local bookstore that hosts author events, and tell them you want me. That is, that you want them to host me. Then the bookstore tells my publisher they’re interested in having me, and my publisher considers flying me in. This works for authors besides me, of course, so if you wanted you could probably arrange for all your favorite writers to be practically shipped to your doorstep. Although it helps a lot if they are not too famous.)

I wish I had news about publication outside the US—in Britain and Australia in particular—but… I don’t. I really hope we can fix that.

[Company] [link] [32 comments]

Reincorporation

Some people were confused and disturbed by my blog about “Rub-a-Dub-Dub.” They wanted to know if I was seriously upset about a children’s book featuring a duck. To which the answer is: yes. Yes, I was. In fact, every time I go into that bathroom and see that little vinyl horror sitting in the corner, it bothers me all over again. I can’t see inside its chewable pages, but I know that “Quack-a-doodle-do” is lurking there. These sorts of things play on your mind.

Going crazy? No, I’ve always been like this. I’m just opening up.

In less confusing and disturbing news, Company is apparently going great guns. My editor, Bill, e-mailed me:

COMPANY rolls on…another reprint.

This was very exciting, because I’ve never been reprinted in hardcover before. (I have in paperback. Syrup is now up to its ninth printing or something ridiculous. But according to my royalty statement, it has still sold hardly any copies. The only explanation I can think of is that the publisher is doing tiny print runs—like maybe ten books at a time. This would make sense, since this is my ex-publisher, Penguin Putnam, who dropped me like an envelope full of Anthrax after Syrup failed to scale the bestseller lists. If I were a little more bitter and vindictive, I would cackle with glee every time they’re forced to reprint, and fire off e-mails to everyone I ever worked with there saying, “How do you like me now, huh? Huh? HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW??”)

Any reprint is terrific, because it means the book has done at least a little better than the publisher expected. But that “another” in Bill’s e-mail puzzled me. I queried him about it, thinking maybe—maybe—this wasn’t the second printing at all; maybe, if I was really lucky, it was the third. Bill replied:

4th, as a matter of fact.

Hot damn! Even if these are tiny print runs, that’s fantastic. Everyone who bought a copy, I’m thinking of you right now. Not individually, obviously. That would take too long. I’m imagining an amorphous, book-buying blob. No, really. It’s the least I could do.

Company has also picked up a couple of great new reviews, most notably in The Economist. What I especially liked about this one is that it called me “a master of short sentences and the passive tense,” and this outraged a group of linguists so much that they wrote an essay about it:

[T]he passive involves a voice contrast; it has absolutely nothing in common with tense. I am astonished, all over again, at how educated people can commit blunders as extreme as this one in print, and editors don’t even notice.

Clearly you don’t want to mess with people whose idea of a funny joke begins: “I was walking across campus with a friend and we came upon half a dozen theoretical linguists committing unprovoked physical assault on a defenseless prescriptivist…”

Update: In the comments, Mark Liberman—one of those outraged linguists—points out that this isn’t the first time my scribblings have caught their attention. There is this article from 2004, in which Mark discusses Jennifer Government’s use of “And yet.” It took me a while to work out whether I was being praised or dissed—I think it’s praised—and the more I read of their web site, the more stupid and uneducated I felt. To rectify this, I plan not to visit their site again.

[Company] [link] [33 comments]