25 Copies of Coffee Shop Available; The Future of Coffee Shop
Posted on March 1, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 33 Comments
Update, 12:48pm: Sold out. Thanks!
Thanks to a convoluted chain of events that may involve a missing UPS truck, a telling stick of Big Red brand chewing gum and Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States of America, Subterranean Press has discovered that it has 25 copies of You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop Into a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing available for purchase. If you wanted a copy but didn’t get one, this is almost certainly your last non eBay-involved chance to get this edition, because Subterranean has decided not to go for another round of printing. You can get them here (Update: link removed because book is sold out now). I’ll post when/if Subterranean tells me they’re all gone.
In other news, as noted in the paragraph above, Subterranean’s decided not to go in for another printing. What does this mean for the book? What it means is that now I have my non-fiction agent shop the book to other publishers, to see if one wants to release a version for wider release. Having Coffee Shop sell out so quickly and having already generated good reviews in places like Booklist will help its case, I think. So we’ll see where it goes from here.
Excellent.
I just got an email from Amazon to say they couldn’t ship this to me and then a few minutes later you posted this. What perfect timing.
My copy has now been reordered from Subterranean
Chris:
“What perfect timing.”
Well, that’s because I’ve infiltrated your computer, Chris, and was waiting for the exact moment.
Sorry, I thought you knew.
And I just ordered a copy too. So that’s two copies out of the 25 gone.
Question from the book-business-ignorant:
If it sold out so fast, why would they opt not to print more? It seems to be a no-brainer to me: “hey, these sold very well! should we print more?” “nah, let’s not.”
Enlighten me?
I’ll let Bill Schafer field that one if we wants to; he comes by the site.
Well, suppose “the free market” is willing to purchase 300 copies. They originally print 200, and those sell out fast, and there’s still a hundred people on the blog clamoring for more. So they say “Hey, let’s print some more, since those sold out fast,” and print another 200 copies. So the last 100 people buy their copies, and now there’s 100 spare copies sitting around that nobody (yet) wants to buy, because it’s hard to actually predict what the market wants.
(Note: numbers were made up; not actual production numbers.)
Damn, now you are making me go buy another book. You cost me over $100 yesterday from Subterranean. :p
Got mine-
I get the Chester Arthur connection, but I’m stumped on the late UPS truck.
Another one gone.
Well, I got mine yesterday actually (number 393).
John you must’ve been pretty tired by the time you got to number 393, because the signature is an intersting study in abstract impressionist graphologyl.
Awesome. Just ordered another copy for a friend of mine.
Odd how that UPS truck just went missing though, one wonders if it wasn’t “accidentally” parked in that big honkin’ shed behind Casa Scalzi. Still trying to figure out the gum and President connection…
The gum is telling of where the UPS truck might have been lost… Big Red being soooo Ohioan. The president still has me bewildered. (No not our current president, let’s not open up a discussion like THAT)
You can imagine what my #429 looks like. If you rotate the signature to the right it sort of resembles the well-known droodle of a woman putting on pantyhose.
got one too!
Another one down.
Thanks for the heads up, John!
Got one at 11:10 AM CST.
This is an interesting case study on blog marketing. Just how fast can 25 limited edition books sell from nothing but a blog entry?
Another one down. Just recently discovered your work and Blog John, looking forward to the read.
Lates,
Connor
Another one down at 11:33 CST. Just FYI: John’s signature on #39 is just as abstract and impressionist as you describe the later ones being. Hey, John, can I send a copy back to you and get it personalized?
–Ann S.
What’s the odd relevance of President Arthur today? I just edited out a chunk of text about his muttonchops on his wikipedia page, and plan to discuss his presidency in class today. Oddly coincidental.
Okay, dammit. I buckled. :-)
See, I got my unemployment check yesterday and I rocked an interview so hard that they asked me to come back in for the second round tomorrow morning. I know I can land this one.
So I did it. I dropped the bling on a copy. As of 11:47 am CST, I managed to score a copy.
I’m such a materialistic ho-bag fanboy. Heh.
I’ll note here what I noted in the entry: Sales are closed because the copies available have sold out. I took out the link too, to make sure people don’t try to order to no use. Thanks everyone!
And now that dual-pronged contest is all the more exciting… :)
25 copies in 2 hours 20 minutes. 1 book every 5.6 minutes.
If any statistic should tell a publisher that book can sell, it’s that one.
Amazon came through for me. I got signed copy 219 yesterday.
About the time last week you were posting that Coffee Shop was running out, I’d gotten an email from Amazon saying that my pre-order copy was shipping and I should get it March 1st. Actually, it came February 27th in the office, but I didn’t open the box until yesterday afternoon.
Mine is number 298 and I’m pretty sure the sig page is illustrated with the resulting explosion from the collisions of the black holes at the center of two colliding galaxies. Cool.
This could be chapter in Coffee Shop Part II — the How I Signed 500 Copies Of A Book Without Giving Anyone A Legible Legal Signature For Purposes Of Forgery Practice.
Dr. Phil
Congrats to all those who got a copy!
Yea! I got mine!
I just got my copy and loved it. As a sidenote on how tastes differ – I enjoy your non-fiction, but don’t really get into your fiction, but my twin enjoys the fiction and doesn’t get into the non-fiction.
Originally posted by Roger:
But, which one is the evil twin?
Well congratulations, or condolences, depending on how you are taking the news.
And thank you for copy 378. Which helped me survive two flight cancellations trying to get home from Madison Wisconsin.
Am I fooling anyone when I bring my laptop to the brewpub?
I’m pretty sure my editor wasn’t fooled. And the copy editor was amused
— SMD
I ordered one from Amazon yesterday, fully expecting them to cancel it, but they just sent me an email saying it shipped. The page says they have 2 left…
Just got my copy today… number 135. Thanks for the heads-up, John!