Last Saturday night, I was reading Joyce Carol Oates’s beautiful novel Little Bird of Heaven. JCO is probably my favorite contemporary author, and whenever I’m reading her books, my mind starts racing with ideas for my own fictive projects at a rate that few of my other favorite authors can match. I also read her books about nine times more quickly than any other books. It seems wrong to put them down, once they are begun.
While I was reading, I made this note on my iPad, a note for a novel that I am in the early stages of writing and whose shape I am still trying to figure out. The idea that this note addresses is not addressed explicitly in Little Bird of Heaven, but it evidently inspired me to think about it. I won’t say anything more for fear of spoiling the plot of LBoH. Here is my note as it appears in Evernote:
THEN! Last night, I went on Twitter and saw these two tweets from Oates:
And I proceeded to lose my mind.
As expected, JCO’s thoughts about this concept are infinitely, spine-tinglingly better than my own.”To underestimate is tragic while to overestimate is only farcical.” Yes. YES.
I am pissed that NYMag only considered Philip Roth and (vaguely) Don DeLillo in their Greatest Living Author feature. The answer is obviously Joyce Carol Oates, with Don a close second.
Thought Catalog launches a digital eBooks imprint today, and I am very happy to say that my Kickstarted book of stories, Cover Story, is among its first releases.
As of today, you can buy Cover Story for a mere $4.99 from the Apple Store or $3.99 from Amazon’s Kindle Store (Barnes and Noble will have a version for its Nook e-reader available this Friday). Next week, those prices will go up to $6.99!!
As someone who writes about ebook-exclusive imprints like this one (think Byliner, TED Books, The Atavist, et al), I am really excited about this, and I think it will be a chance to spotlight and support new and emerging and younger writers. The authors get a generous cut of sales, the books are beautiful (thanks to the tireless work of TC and Vook) and the Thought Catalog audience is attentive and hungry. Also, it’s an opportunity for people to get off the Internet and read, and that is excellent!
Kindle users: Buy Cover Story here!
iPhone/iPad users: Buy it here!
For more info on the imprint and to see the other titles, visit Thought Catalog Digital Books, or e-mail hello (at) thoughtcatalog.com.
A small book update.
For those of you who have received and read Cover Story, give it a gander/rating on Goodreads, where it now exists! This is also a place where you can find out what exactly the book is about, which may matter to some people.
If you haven’t read it, here’s how you can read it.
Very shortly, I will be making it even easier (and more affordable) for you to read it: with an e-book!!!! Stay tuned.
BYE!
Cover Story is my book, and it’s out today! It’s 14 short stories that nobody has ever seen before. For now, it’s available in traditional form, and will soon be available as an eBook. It costs $14, which includes shipping (unless you live outside the U.S., in which case shipping is $4).
This book happened because of Kickstarter and the people who gave to the project and wrote about it on their websites and blogs and on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere. I am grateful to every person who blogged, retweeted, liked, reblogged, commented and donated. It not only made sure the thing was funded, but it quashed all my doubts about whether I could actually do the thing. So thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.
My book of stories, Cover Story, is done!
It will be released on June 19, just in time for you to warm your hands by the campfire with it.
Go here for some more fake and real covers made especially for my Kickstarter sugar daddies and mommies.
He has a publicist who probably has dreams about him every night.
