Oh, and These ARCs Showed Up Too
Posted on May 9, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 18 Comments
Thought you might like to see them.
For the record: I love love love getting physical ARCs. I’m happy to live in the electronic age, but getting something that looks and feels (and hell, is) an actual physical book still lights up all my squee neurons. Because it means the book is really going to happen. ARCs aren’t cheap. They wouldn’t make ’em unless they were going all the way with the book. And, yes, I knew they would (they paid me a not trivial sum for the book), but still. Look! Book book booky book book.
And yeah. That sends me off into the weekend pretty well.
I JUST finished Unlocked and am starting the preview of Chapter 1. All I can say is “OMG! I can’t wait for Lock In to come out!”
Physical ARCs feel tangible. Real. I can understand why they light the neurons as they do.
The only problem with the existence of physical ARCs is that they do bad things to my moral compass; I have just finished Unlocked + Chapter 1 of Locked In and I would do bad things to get my hands on one of those ARCs…
I just started Unlocked and I can’t wait to recommend it to a friend of mine. Both because it’s a great story so far, and also because she is an epidemiologist and I am curious to hear what she’ll have to say about the premise. :)
can do 14th
Hmm,
That reminds me I need to follow up with certain publicists/publishers about Door Prizes for Phoenix Comicon Drinks With Authors….
Pumped for you John. Looking forward to reading your newest works.
I just finished Unlocked and am eagerly awaiting Lock-in. This is going to be as exciting as the Old Man’s series. Thank you for the great work.
Yep, ARCs feel great. A feeling that never gets old. Congratulations and enjoy the hell out of it.
A “non trivial sum” ? Did you finally get that unicorn/monkey hybrid you always wanted?
Also just finished Unlocked & am awaiting Lock in… :-)
dude, if you had heard the names i just called you, you’d get the impression that i dislike you. when the reality is, i ADORE you [at least, i adore your works; we’ve only met once, spoke for like 45 seconds, but you gave a good impression…] i’m just JEALOUS AS HELL. because ARCs!
ARCs are like… i love ARCs. physical ARCs. more than the regular version of a book. i have a small collection of ARCs, and every time you show some in general i get jealous, but THESE — just, !!! [i is poor, poor, i can’t afford a physical copy of Unlocked, as much as i’d prefer it. i prefer hardback overall! le sigh. at least the Kindle edition is affordable, and i’m gonna read it once MarCon is over]
so really, that string of filthy mean things was a COMPLIMENT, i swear :D
[it started with “that dirty, teasing jerk” and… yeah. devolved into german, russian and my one known arabic curse. i’m a bad person, when book-envy bites ;( ]
This may seem an odd question, but does anyone else smell their new books when they arrive? I love the smell of a brand spanking new book. Reading it is also pretty cool.
I enjoyed the oral interview format of Unlocked. I think John mentioned that he was planning a book in that format when World War Z came out. Does anyone know of any other si-fi books in the same format, whatever it is called. Thanks
Question for those who have read prequel… One of the criticisms (and actually valid one) is that the last several books had a main character who was very much the same person as far as personality goes (sarcastic, impertinent, etc). Does this series seem to be going same route?
I like the cover on the white one.
I can understand that sense of accomplish you get from this. I would guess that a book is probably over 1000 hours of work minimum(and that is on the low side). This probably doesn’t include the brainstorming phase and thinking about the work when you are not actually typing.
To anyone in the writing industry… is the ARC the absolute final version or are there still copy edits, grammatical checks, etc… to do?
@Scott, Oh I totally do the same thing!