the paperback tour
May 15th, 2007 | Uncategorized
Look, this came in the mail yesterday. The official publication date is June 5. In a couple weeks I start flitting hither and yon again, and not a moment too soon–I’m almost out of tiny hotel bottles of shampoo. (Uh…I have a dim recollection of having made that feeble shampoo joke before. Sorry if I’m repeating myself. It must be a side-effect of too much travel.) Anyway, come see me read at one of these places:
New York:
May 30: Barnes & Noble, UWS, 2289 Broadway @ 82nd, 7 pm
June 2: Book Expo, BEA, Signing & Panel Events
June 23: MoCCA Festival, featured artist, presented with the 2007 MoCCA Art Festival Award, 1:30-2:35 pm
June 27: The Happy Ending Reading Series, 8 pm
Denver, CO:
June 5: Tattered Cover, Lodo Store, 7:30 pm
San Francisco:
June 6: RADAR reading series, hosted by Michelle Tea, event with Ariel Schrag (cartoonist and writer for Showtime’s ‘The L Word’) and others, June 6, 6-7:30 pm at the San Francisco Main Library
Tempe, AZ:
June 8: Changing Hands Bookstore, 7:00
Washington, DC
June 25: American Library Association Event, for the GLBTRT Stonewall Book Awards Brunch, June 25, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm
Philadelphia:
June 26: Free Library, June 26, 7:00pm
VT:
Stowe Free Library, Tuesday, June 12th, 7:30 pm
Everyone’s Books, Brattleboro, June 21, 7pm
Borders 276, Speaking & Signing, Saturday June 30, 2pm
San Diego:
July 25-30: San Diego Comic-Con, Spotlight featured author
35 Responses to “the paperback tour”
Don’t those paperbacks look shiny and cool?
Yes! Very, very shiny!
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, no Oregon trip scheduled I see.
Awww, no Canadian stop? So sad.
You know, Montreal’s not so far from Vermont…
congrats on the latest shiny iteration, AB! and the reading with michelle tea! hot! but what, ariel schrag writes for l word? isn’t she like 16 years old?
Any chance you will be swinging by Central PA?
That’s so exciting! Though why oh why did I have to book my trip to Vermont the exact week you’re going to be in San Francisco? (Those readings with Michelle Tea are the funnest, by the way. And there’s sandwiches!).
The midwest always gets left out… 🙁 I just read Fun Home in one of my lit classes at DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) and I was enthralled. It’s WONDERFUL!!
Iowa! Come to Iowa! Lots of writers (and non-writers) would love to see you here. (Our students are reading you in classes too!)
Because I am a completist (read: obsessive) dork, I plan to purchase this in paperback, as well. Perhaps this will stop others from asking to borrow my (signed, first edition) hardback copy, thereby unwittingly prompting strained, uncomfortable sounds as I figure out how to satisfy my natural desire to weasel out of it (I don’t want others’ greasy finger prints to mar this treasure) vs. my compulsion to want to spread the genius of A.’s work to everyone who will listen. I can just lend them the paperback, and keep my Very Special Fun Home off-limits.
what about the South? Would be nice to see ya at Burke’s Bookstore in Memphis!
Okay, everyone wants you to come to their town, but Santa Cruz CA is really really close to SF! And there are lots of lesbians here!
Our local venue for such things is Bookshop Santa Cruz, and it would be great if you could do a reading there. Their contact info is (831) 423-0900, specialorders@bookshopsantacruz.com
Well, sorry to everyone who you’re missing, but I’m thrilled you’re coming to Denver. I last saw you read in Baltimore in… 1999? 2000?
So exciting.
Congrats on the MoCCA award! Bummed I can’t make it this year, have fun!!!
Thanks also for being a bit of a cartoonist news column. Without this blog I would have missed that Ellen Forney has a new book or that Ariel Schrag writes fot “The L Word”!
Congrats on the book!
Buffalo is a FABULOUS town with great independent bookstores 2
Talking Leaves & *Rust Belt Books*
&&& There are tons of colleges and universities with fabulous english departments.., hallwalls exhibit x series, just buffalo literary center.org, etc. etc.
Just so you know: When I was just out of high school I was hanging with this 26 year old person (uh, in THE ONLY gay bar 40 miles away and lying about my age the whole time). I gave her all of my dtwof books before I moved because she ‘didn’t read books’ and it made her feel SO much less lonely. She lent them to other people….so on…they made a HUGE difference in the lives of some people in a very rural place (I’m now 30)
Sooooo glad to finally have a graphic novel though!!! Woot!
ooh….shiny…
I’m glad that you’ll be back in SF at a time when I’m in town!!
Oh, and hello fellow readers! I’ve been away from the blog for a while….I’m looking forward to getting back into discussions!
“I’m glad that you’ll be back in SF at a time when I’m in town!!”
And I’ll be back in NYC from SF just in time for that first reading! Yay!! This is too cool!!!
Bummer I will miss you in SF again… i’ll most probably be around but extended fam will be visiting… to whom I’m not out (tho i did see “brokeback” in bombay with them, quite on accident… quite the head/heart-trip)… shoulda caught ya the last time…
Congrats, AB! Hope your publisher makes this tour several notches more comfy than the last time you went around. LOL
Really wish you can video even just one venue and put it up on YT. You think this is possible?
What? No crashing into Massachusetts? Ah well. I’ll have to buy the book and pretend I heard you read from it. 😉 Good luck, and have fun.
Come to Baltimore!
Will your publisher continue to offer FUN HOME in hardback?
What considerations determine the publisher’s stance on this point, I wonder… How many copies sold / year merit keeping a book in print in two formats? In one?
Hmmm.
Have the publisher send you to Hawaii (after San Diego), you have fans here. The guy at Borders, Les Honda, is very cool and would do a statewide gig. Do Honolulu, Maui and Big Island.
Hey–
Does anyone know if Alison’s DC reading is open to the public?
THX
Ahoy Alison! I was wondering, when you’re in San Diego, will you be at Comic-Con for all four days, or only on a specific day to read? I’m trying to get a contingent from the SDSU Women’s Studies program to go. 🙂
Alex K-
Regarding your question about the continued availability of hardcovers:
Generally the way it works is that publishers put out the hardcover first because hardcovers are more profitable than paperbacks. They want to sell as many hardcovers as they can before bringing it out in paperback, because once the paperback is out, almost nobody will buy the hardcover. So as long as the hardcover sells well, they don’t put out a paperback. But the hardcover sales almost always dry up eventually, and that’s when they put out the paperback. In most cases this takes a year or two, occasionally it takes several years, and in very rare cases (Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein are two examples) it never happens at all.
Once the paperback is out, depending on how many hardcovers are left over, the publisher usually sells most of them off as remainders (also known as bargain books) and keeps a relatively small number of them in the warehouse for those rare people who might want to special order them. Once those have sold off (which can take years), the publisher declares the hardcover out of print.
To add to what Bob said in response to Alex K:
I think it also depends on the type of book that it is as well. I know the Sci-Fi/Fantasy books my brother buys have all these different editions (hardback and non-hardback), that “match” the covers/spines of “special” other editions that then become collectable.
I’ve got my first book coming out early next year (an anthology of essays discussing lesbian and bisexual women on television), and the publisher has told me that I have to fulfil certain criteria to be eligible for a paperback edition (sell a certain number within a year and possibly get a course to set it). It’s a shame as the hardback is ridiculously expensive, but now it makes sense why they do it if they make more money out of it. I think with academic books they keep some hardbacks on hand to sell to libraries, as they survive longer.
atlanta? come back, al! please come back!
I’ll be at Bunns & Noodle in NYC with bells on (ok, probably with jeans on), if I can only get a sitter!
Hey there.
I just finished reading Leslie Feinberg’s _Trans Gender Warriors_ and absolutely love the cartoon you did for it. (pg 114). This stuff has roots, and your contributions to the LGBTTQ arts community is wonderfully appreciated. Good luck paperbacking your own roots about your country.
Pretty…
What about Toronto? Come to Toronto!
I hope to see you at the Philly event – is there an age limit? (cuz my son would love to see a real live cartoonist/author in person – he’s 10.)
You are coming back to SF!!! I am so excited. When I came to your last reading in SF you signed my book and I could barely say hello I was so shy and thrilled to meet you in person : )
SHE’S COMING TO AZ AT LAST! YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!