the countdown begins

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The release date for Doppelganger is April 1st. Unless you’re a Big Name Author like J.K. Rowling, though, and people will line up around the block to get your book, release dates tend (I am told) to be flexible. What this means is that Doppelganger will likely start appearing on shelves some time this month, and ought to be out everywhere by April.

I hereby vow not to go looking for it more than once a week. Because otherwise, I’m going to be a wreck.

But you have a chance to feed my twitchiness! If you come across a copy of Doppelganger on the loose in a bookstore, let me know! Bonus points if you take a picture of it. In fact, the first person to send me a picture of my novel in the wild wins the right to be Tuckerized: I’ll name a character after you in the urban fantasy I’m working on right now. (You’ll probably be a psychic working for the government.) So keep your eyes peeled, folks, and in the meantime I’ll be making my nest under the bed, to hide in when the time comes.

0 Responses to “the countdown begins”

  1. ninja_turbo

    I’ll be your West Coast lookout, and requisition a camera for pictures the moment I see your novel. 🙂

  2. sarcastibich

    I tried to pre-order it the other day at Borders and they weren’t able to find it. What company is publishing the book? And can you give us the ISBN so we can order that way?

    Or should we wait for it on the shelves? I had thought you said ordering from the stores was more helpful to your cause, but if I’m mistaken please clarify.

    • Marie Brennan

      The publisher is Warner Books, and the ISBN is 0446616982. It doesn’t much matter whether you pre-order it at a bookstore or get it off the shelves; my point was just that getting it from a physical bookstore helped me out in ways that getting it from Amazon didn’t.

  3. unforth

    Here is how release dates work, from someone who worked in a bookstore for 8 months.

    Technically, no title is supposed to come out before it’s release date. It’s very common for boxes to come in labeled “Warning: Contains Street Dated Contents.” Indeed, putting out a title before it’s street date will get a store fined for thousands of dollars. Shipments come in on Thursdays, and most street dates are Tuesdays. Simple, right?

    Well, no. See, the list of street dates that they give us only contains about 100 titles, and far more than that come out in a month. However, there simply is not time to check every single title to see if it’s a street date.As such, beleaugered, busy staff shelve everything unless it’s on the street date list, or we happen to know that it shouldn’t be out yet (I frequently knew which manga shouldn’t be put on the shelf yet, though we usually put it out anyway). Generally, big releases of all kinds are not put out early (that happened once at my store, the girl who did it almost got fired, cause the fines are that steep) in large part because they will come in boxes that actually say the street date on them, but also because (1) they are on the list and (2) usually, we’ve had customers coming in for weeks asking us when the new insert-famous-author-here is coming out, and so we’ve memorized the damn date (Harry Potter 6 came out on July 16th…I wish I could forget ;)). Smaller releases generally come in a week or two before the street date, and they almost always get put out immediately, because there simply isn’t time to check every single title in the computer.

    At least, that’s how it worked at Waldenbooks. This might work different at a store where they have a computer in the back room, which would greatly facilitate checking titles not on the list and which we did not have, our only computer was in the front of the store.

    Hope it helps a little in revealing the mystery of release dates. 🙂

    • Marie Brennan

      Fascinating — and no, that isn’t sarcastic. I love knowing the behind-the-scenes machinery. I’d been told that things often appear on the shelves two weeks or so ahead of their release date, unless they’re Important Books, and this explains why. I worked in a bookstore myself, but only for a summer, and I was pretty much entirely on the floor, not in receiving. I just shelved what they put on the carts for me to shelve.

  4. wadam

    Mine’s already on order at BN over on third street, so if you’d like, I’ll let you know when they call me to come pick it up.

  5. danielmc

    will there be a ‘local author’ signing party???
    hmmmm????

  6. gollumgollum

    Does danielmc count? He’s already got a copy in the wild. (;

  7. d_c_m

    I’m on the Lookout!! Every week I work at least one day at B&N. I have found the space your book will be on and I will soo buy it and announce it LOUDLY via LJ when I find your book. Aw, heck, if I get smart enough at get your phone number, I’ll even call ya’!!

    Oh and do you awnt to do a book signing at B&N? I can talk to our new boss.

  8. wood_dragon

    I took a look at the http://www.chapters.indigo.ca site. They have it listed as coming out in April and September but … not written by Marie.

    • Marie Brennan

      Huh. I sent them a correction on the name. The two-listing two-date confusion is probably due to the sequel — Warrior and Witch is coming out in October.

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