There's the thing that's getting real real right now.
I sent out galleys Which are these bad boys, right here.
junk ja ja ja ja I got a box full of them send to friends and family and stuff And these are advanced readers copies Which are also called galleys.
They're super illegal to transfer from person to person--super illegal you go to the jail And then you go to the prison after that the difference between jails and prisons is something that I'm glad that I finally understand the- uh... Yeah, so it's got, got one of these on the inside cover. There I am at VidCon I don't know if that I think that they must have Ehm Masked in that color so that it matches. That's nice! and then it says on the inside cover: "These are uncorrected advanced proofs bound for your reviewing convenience in quoting from this book for reviews or any other purpose please refer to the final printed book as the author may change - make changes on these proofs before the book goes to press" and I will In fact one of the things, that I'm procrastinating from doing right now, is that very thing. I need to change some stuff in the last chapter of this book to match with what's happening in the sequel to the book That is a very nervous making thing When I'm finished and then like I have to make the sequel match what happens in this book at the moment I can make this book match with what's happening in the sequel, but very soon, that's not a thing anymore But that's not the thing that
I'm freaking out about right now I'm freaking out about the fact that these books, these galleys - which are very cool by the way They have this little feature that they made. It says "Don't stop me now" until you do that. This way does that. That's neat. They uhm have been sent out to a number of people who may read the book and may say things about it. Now, will they? I don't know yet! We sent it to a few people with, specifically, With the idea, with the hope that they would give me what are called "blurbs" You know what blurbs are, I don't need to tell you what a blurb is. Here's "Shipbreaker", I like it a lot Let's see John Scalzi said, "Tough, Tense, and terrific. A story that keeps you turning pages while you read and returning to the tale long after you're done." It's a very good blurb. And so I have sent things off to people to With the hope that they might blurb the book. And these are people who I have been you know just a fan of for a long time as a person who's not a writer, just a reader of books that I love. I love books, I love these people's books. And when I see them post pictures. Victoria Schwab just posted a picture of a bunch of galleys that she has recently gotten and mine is in among them That freaks me the freak out cuz Victoria Schwab's gonna read my book and she's gonna think things about it And not all those things are gonna be good Inevitably! Because like nothing's perfect Maybe a lot of the things are gonna be like "Well, this could have been better, Hank if you'd worked a little harder If you'd thought a little more, if you had a little more talent" All those ideas Alright, is Victoria Schwab gonna think them? Probably! And that's okay. That's okay. It's okay. That's normal I'm not freaking an artist here. I'm making something that I Care a lot about, worked really hard on, but I know That I didn't make a book with the goal of it being every word is perfect I made a book with the goal of saying things and telling a story and hopefully I'd do that but like it's so scary to have the book going out to these people who I Respect so much and and I'm never gonna believe it if they say nice things I'm never gonna like fully internalize that they are not lying Or just being nice I'm sure that they aren't, I'm sure that they aren't saying nice things about the book just to be nice I'm sure that they aren't like protecting my feelings or playing some game with reality, I don't know what my like subconscious or even conscious is gonna do, what kind of gymnastics It'll be up to, to try and make me not believe The things that people say that are nice, but it will do that But every person who doesn't write back or give a blurb despite the fact that the reason is almost certainly going to be that they were very busy and weren't able to get to it in time and only that I'm gonna think that they hated it and this is just the first taste of people's opinions It's so weird because I make a youtube video and people can hate it and I'd be like "well, you know I'm gonna make another one next week and oops Oopsie," But, oh. It's so different. I mean I've never worked There are things that I have worked on longer than than this book. That's not true. Yeah, that is absolutely the case that's things like VidCon things like my family things like uh bbbbbbbbb I didn't, I couldn't think of a third thing dftba.com the entire institution of nerdfighteria Those things but not they are not like as encapsulated in like the very small physical space and and like limited like uhhhhh Sort of - you know - linear format of this where there's a beginning a middle and an end and there's you know 337 pages it's actually a little more than that 41 341 pages, you know that always kind of hurts Some people are you know not fans of anything that I've worked for a long time on But it's it's just a really different feeling and I'm dealing with it right now and that's okay. But oh, yeah I'm freaking out and I really want to get that this book into the hands of more people I'm sorry that the Galley release is so limited so generally galleys are Made very public. So there's many people who might sell a book get a copy of the book so that they can - like when I say sell a book I mean people who work at bookstores or even at libraries or reviewers of
all sorts - but we were like I've requested - because I'm so afraid of things leaking um before the book comes out and I really want sort of a simultaneous experience as much as possible for folks that the galleys are very Very limited and so I feel bad for all the people who would normally get a galley but aren't getting a galley of this book But September 25th is not that far away. So I'm just gonna have to drive through this and luckily I got a lot of things to distract me!
