Launch Day Super-Madness!
Today is the official pub. date for Gentlemen. You can find it at your local bookstore, on Amazon, on BarnesandNoble.com (where my name was misspelled until I wore them down with emails), and random places like flipkart in India, where it costs 919 rupees and is paired with Slumdog Millionaire.
All lengths will be gone to and all torpedoes fired! There is no such thing as bad publicity on launch day, only dangerous, impractical, and deeply unethical publicity—and I want to go to there!
Publicity Stunts and Minor Crimes I Am Considering
(I may add to this list if I get any inappropriate suggestions.)
1) A significantly paler, less buff Naked Cowboy. Don’t think I won’t do it: I live just blocks from Times Square!
2) Start an online scrabble game with thousands of people. If I win, they buy the book. Should sell two, maybe three copies!
3) Launch my little red Geo Metro south on FDR Drive North:
Televised coverage + posthumous sales = ca-ching!
4) T.P. City Hall. (No offense, Bloomberg, but some of us are still working on that first billion…)
5) Hang precariously from something very tall. Good city for that.
6) Hi-jack Staten Island ferry with water pistol. Take it to some other borough.
7) Leave barrels around the city with human bodies inside. (Peter’s suggestion. Great publicity, but I can’t help thinking that this could backfire…)
Any other ideas? Anyone? Bueller?
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Congrats!!
Thanks! It has been an exciting few days!
Dress up as a hobo clown and carry a cardboard sign that says “will rite for fud.” Oh, wait. You want something that will actually make you stand out in Manhattan, not blend right in.
Incidentally, it’s great to see that old picture of you from your grandmother’s 80th birthday party.
Yeah, those were the days. In retrospect, hiring the “Naughty Cop” for that party was a mistake, but still, good times.
Congratulations!!! I am so excited to see your dreams coming true. I still recall the times we’d meet for coffee and talk about this happening one day. Good for you, Michael!
Lisa
Thanks, Lisa! Yes, I remember those talks as well. It has been quite a process! I hope you are doing well and still conquering the roads, mile by mile.
You should do all of these amazing things…
Happy Launch Day!
All of them?! I’d better get a move on. Now, where did I put that cowboy hat?
Thanks, Marie!
A good list. I had no idea you had a Geo Metro, but I’m for that one. Just rig the accelerator though–don’t actually die.
HAPPY RELEASE DAY!!
Good thinking. I will stick a knife through the pedal, like Dalton did in Roadhouse.
Thanks!
Happy Publishing Day! Be sure to go to every bookstore you can, find your books, and do a victory lap around the store while waving the books over your head. If the store doesn’t have Gentlemen in yet, throw a screaming tantrum by the main entrance. Be sure to shriek your name and the title of the book several times.
Angela is just remembering what I did on release day.
See, I thought she was talking about you, but then I was like, but what about the top hat and ostrich costume? It’s sounds like excellent advice to me, though. If there’s one thing I learned from age 4, it’s that screaming tantrums work. (And that stoves are hot and a few other things, but I’m trying to stay on-message here.)
What an odd coincidence that I should have felt compelled to read the book today FROM START TO FINISH in honor of your launch date!
Also, please to explain to my editor why I lost a day of writing.
Congrats!
Hooray! That is *exactly* the right way to spend launch day. I mean, except for the lost day thing. Please blame that on something else: a pack of wild badgers? a pack of domesticated badgers? Just two of many possibilities…
Hi there,
michaelnorthrop.net – da best. Keep it going!
Dirnov
Thanks, Dirnov, I appreciate it. I’ll keep it going until they drag me away from the keyboard—and I won’t be easy to drag!