And Now, a Small Bit of Good News
Posted on May 19, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 36 Comments
Which is: Fuzzy Nation made the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list.
As the kids say: w00t!
No, not number one. Down the list a bit from there (I don’t know if I’m supposed to reveal the placing yet ; the list it’s on is slated for May 29th publication). But, hey: any place on the NYT hardcover fiction list is a good place for a science fiction novel to be. I am genuinely delighted.
While there are many people to thank, including everyone who bought a copy in the last week (thank you!), I’m going to give a special shout out at the moment to: Cassandra Ammerman, my publicist at Tor, who helped shake out a bunch of media interest and who set up my book tour; Kekai Kotaki, whose excellent cover for the book almost certainly dragged a few people across the bookstore floor to take a look at it; and of course Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Fuzzy’s editor.
I must also bow toward the ghost of H. Beam Piper. I hope he’s happy about where I’ve taken his fuzzy little creatures. I’d like to think he is.
Edited to add: Oh, and I have to thank Paul and Storm for this:
Because everyone knows the power ballad helps the box office. That’s why it’s there!
Hey, now you know how your obit will begin:
“New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi…”, and perhaps will end with the line “…”Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away.”
Congratulations! And thanks for coming to the signing in Salt Lake City last night. It was great to hear you speak and get to meet you.
My 11 year old daughter is reading it now.
Congratulations. I enjoyed reading it and have recommended it to other science fiction readers.
I just finished reading Piper’s Little Fuzzy which I really liked. The most interesting thing about it was the “advanced” technology that a writer in the early 1960’s would imagine. His characters are still using movie cameras and are developing film. Also the characters had personal habits that wouldn’t have seemed unusual when the book was written but seem strange now–I’m referring to how much the characters smoked. I understand that Fuzzy Nation is Little Fuzzy re-imagined and having read Little Fuzzy I can see that there is a lot that should be updated. I’m really looking forward to reading the new book.
I read Fuzzy Nation, and thumbs up – a real page turner. And then I looked on Amazon, and at least as of a week ago, Little Fuzzy was available for free for Kindle (which there are free readers for mac, pc, and so on), so people have little excuse not to read that too. And so I am.
Does NYT report how it ranks in e-book sales? That’s the version I bought.
Congratulations. Well-deserved.
Weird, I googled fuzzy nation to see it’s sale rank on Amazon and I got all these links for a line of “fuzzy nation” products. Mostly hand bags with dogs on them, but I wonder if there’s any TM implications.
Congrats, John! I agree, the NYT Bestseller List is a great place for a science fiction book to be.
w00t! I hope there was much happy dancing when you got the news.
Out of curiosity, do ebook and/or audiobook sales count towards bestseller status? I’m waiting to pick up my hard copy of Fuzzy Nation till I see you on Friday (woo!), but I’ve already got the uber-awesome audiobook from Audible. I will be saddened if my not buying a paper copy hurt your NYT ranking (because, of course, my one sale would have nudged you up a rank, no doubt).
That’s spectacular. Congratulations!
You’re welcome! :) Nice job!
Kevin @ #7 – NYT Book Review section posts both a hardcover bestseller list & combined e-sales/print bestseller list every Sunday. So John’s well covered by all the book news that’s fit to print…
Guess my purchase this week will help keep the Fuzzy Nation on the charts!
Congratulations!!
Fantastic and congratulations!! Also very happy to know that purchases of eBooks will count!!
John, I purely do hope that you have planned for the day to come when the opening of the musical Fuzzy Man Nationl is announced. Because I think I would climb over a squirming pile of marketdroids and comic-strip action figures‡, wearing stilleto heels if necessary, to see that.*
________
* And no, I’m not ordinarily that fond of musicals as such. †
† Nor of outré footwear, at all. ; ^ )
‡ Each sold separately.
Congrats! That is excellent and well deserved news. I picked mine up at the Portland signing and am immensely enjoying the read. I can’t wait to share it with others once I’m done, too!
I videoed some of the Fuzzy Nation tour appearance at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California. These videos can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PipLagenta#grid/user/C25E3DECE49B5A7A
Congratulations. A well deserved honour.
Super! Very happy for you.
I’m halfway through and enjoying it. Glad my one purchase could help put you on the list. There’s a nice write up and interview over at the Amazon Omnivoracious blog too.
Congratulations. NY Best Seller is an authors heaven and a nice confirmation that people enjoy your work. Of course, a nice and healthy royalty cheque is an even better confirmation, but this is easier to gloat about to your friends. Though it s a lot worse at buying groceries, unfortunately.
Read the original series several times and out loud for my sons. Just finished your rendition in less then a day(couldn’t put it down) and am IN LOVE! You did a fabulous job.
Congratulations, John.
@7 & @14 Per wikipedia, NYT’s bestseller list is based only upon brick-and-mortar sales within the United States, so ebook sales don’t count. A shame, since if it did, some Canadian sales would count towards bestseller status, since amazon, at least, doesn’t offer ebooks through the .ca, but redirects us to the American version.
I will be saddened if my not buying a paper copy hurt your NYT ranking
The NYT best-seller list is compiled using a Sekrit Algorithm (really, its classification as a trade secret has been upheld in at least one court decision) based on print sales from a small group of bookstores and then some special herbs and spices put in by a committee of people who decide on the list. It’s also to some degree a “push” rather than a “pull” list, as the NYT requests reports on certain titles it is “tracking”.
So unless your local bookstore is one of the reporting bookstores, your buying a print copy wouldn’t have helped John. Rest easy.
I’m really hoping Fuzzy Nation’s success leads to a lot of classic SF ‘reboots’. Keeping these stories alive for successive generations can only be a good thing.
@1, Dave Ruddell: Hey, now you know how your obit will begin: “New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi…”, and perhaps will end with the line “…”Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away.”
Ridiculous. No way we’re switching to metric.
Congratulations!
I loved it, and it introduced me to the original work which was also a fun read.
And you’ve introduced a most desirable peice of future science: Auto Climate Control. My dog wants!
I just wanted to say I bought it without review, sped through it in about a day and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Thanks, just for making the world slightly better than when you came into it.
I liked FUZZY NATION a lot! Downloaded to my Nook, and read it, in its’ entirity, the day before yesterday.
I only have one (count it, one) bone to pick. The male characters were uniformly referred to by their surnames, but the main female character was referred to by her first name. I know it’s pretty common practice, but it always takes me out of the story just a bit. (And no, I didn’t accuse John of sexism.)
I pre-ordered Fuzzy Nation for the Kindle; it’s nice to have the book just show up on release day, particularly when I think back to how hard it was to find and buy books when I was a kid in a small town (thank goodness for libraries).
In this morning’s paper there was an article about Amazon’s announcement that they are now selling more electronic books than paper books (all paper books, not just hardcovers). These are interesting times.
#23! Nice!
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-05-29/hardcover-fiction/list.html
With regards to the passage above, does anyone have a copy of the minutes from the Chamber’s Council on Small Business meeting? I, too, oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), as we do not need ever more regulation. Let’s cut red tape with a big pair of scissors.
Comment above at 12:14am: Non-sequitur content, “name” that’s keywords for the site, spam-site payload. You know what to do.