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Sunday, April 13, 2003
posted 6:43 AM
UK TOUR LOOMS
http://www.fashionpolice.dk/wgb/monkey.htm
I am indeed a tired little publicity monkey, as Fashionpolice's spoof of the Penguin site states, but nonetheless will shortly depart for Dublin, where I hope to sleep off the worst of the soul-delay over the Easter weekend. The signing there, I'm informed, has been cancelled, due to some difficulty with the intended co-sponsor of the event. Will do some press interviews there on Tuesday morning, then on to England.
I don't know why, as someone asked here, back when we started, the UK edition is coming out so much later than the US edition. Prior to the advent of internet bookselling, cunning British publishers sought to be first, thereby ensuring a certain tiny foreign market of people intent on owning "hardcover first". This has gradually changed, although PR has the biggest gap, so far, between US and UK publication. I imagine that it has nothing to do with PR per se, but rather is the result of the internal scheduling issues of both publishers. Publishers bring books out constantly, as do their competitors, and schedule, to what extent they can, to garner the maximum amount of attention for a given title.
I'm looking forward to the UK tour, as indeed I always do, though this really does seem to have been an unsually long promotional interlude. It started back in January, in Copenhagen, went to half-speed after the US leg, and now is about to finish out in London. After which... After which, I'll toggle to non-promo mode and start to approach the writing of a next book.
TOGGLING TO NON-PROMO MODE
Will necessarily involve that which Fashionpolice already seeks to avoid experiencing: the complete and utter cessation of blogging.
One thing that was immediately clear to me, from the first blog, is that this is not an activity, for me, that can coexist with the writing of a novel. In some way I only dimly apprehend, it requires too much of the same bandwidth (yet never engages anything like the total *available* bandwidth).
But, definitely, the ecology of novelization and the ecology of blogging couldn't coexist, for me. It would be like trying to boil water without a lid. Or, more like it, trying to run a steam engine without a lid. (I wonder if that would be the case for a native of the blogosphere -- for whom, as Lou Reed once said of heroin addicts, "the needle is a toothbrush"? Maybe not.)
So, fair warning: I will indeed stop doing this at some point, though not until I return from England.
And not until I've told the true story of the "I Want Room Service" scene in JOHNNY MNEMONIC, discussed in a recent thread. Coming soon.
Best wishes to Fashionpolice for her continuing recovery. It's been very nice, having you addicted!
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