The past couple of days have been exciting. Previously when I had a new book out, things were fairly low-key. We celebrated with a dinner or something, but there wasn’t a whole lot of fanfare.
Things are completely different with Flight or Fright. For one thing, three different publishers are involved: Cemetery Dance, Simon & Schuster audio and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.
Yesterday, I was stunned to receive a floral arrangement from my co-editor. Truly bowled over. Then, when I got home last night I found a package from the group at Hodder & Stoughton (see picture). It contained an oversized congratulatory card (about 12″ x 8″) signed by editorial and marketing, together with a trade paperback of the H&S edition (for Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and airside at UK airports), cleverly packaged in an airsickness bag.
Today, Simon & Schuster audio has been releasing excerpts of the audiobook all over the place. You can hear (and see) Steve read from “The Turbulence Expert,” hear an excerpt of Corey Stall reading Joe Hill’s “You Are Released” and another of him reading from my story, “Zombie’s on a Plane,” Santino Fontana reading from Cody Goodfellow’s “Diablitos” and Christian Coulson reading from Roald Dahl’s “They Shall Not Grow Old.” Finally, there’s a YouTube video of Norbert Leo Butz (Kevin Rayburn from the Netflix series Bloodline) greeting people from the Simon & Schuster studio as he’s reading “The Flying Machine” and “The Fifth Category.”
Also, new reviews, including one from Mike Ripley at SHOTS eZine in the UK. Thus far, the response has been terrific. Everyone seems to be enjoying our collection of turbulent tales. We did get a 1-star review on Amazon from someone incredulous that anyone who flies regularly would want to read scary flying stories, without commenting on the stories at all.
Corey Stall reads “Zombies on a Plane”
Oh, yeah, and there was also this article at The Ringer called The King Chroniclers, for which I was interviewed a while back.
We didn’t even get to have a celebratory dinner last night, though, because I spent the entire evening at the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Citizen Police Academy. We’ll rectify that tonight.
I finally got to the end of Season 2 of Jessica Jones. I enjoyed the season, perhaps even moreso than Season 1, but I kept getting interrupted by other things. And I saw the final episode of Castle Rock, which I’m sure will have people talking. I’m looking forward to seeing how people respond to it.
I also managed to get a few book reviews done recently, all for books that are either just out or soon to be out:
- The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman
- Transcription by Kate Atkinson
- Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly
- Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson
