SELLOUT is out now.
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Eight months ago I announced in this very newsletter that I’d written a book called SELLOUT, but if I’m being honest, I never thought its release date would actually come. I don’t mean that in some hokey, faux gratitude way, like you’d hear in an award show acceptance speech. I mean, very literally, I was convinced that, given the state of things, the world would implode or the universe would conspire to kill me before I saw its publication. Yesterday morning I woke up at 7 AM to an earthquake. As the windows rattled and my bed shook, I braced for The End and I thought: “Ah fuck, ya got me, universe. Good one.” But as I write this, it is just a few minutes before midnight. I hate to jinx myself here but it looks like I might actually cross this finish line.
Rolling Stone just ran the first excerpt from the book—a lengthy section from the chapter about My Chemical Romance. My Chem was, admittedly, the band I knew the least about before starting the project, but people who have read the book tell me it’s their favorite chapter. (You can also read the intro to the book over at LitHub but after that I really must insist that you buy it!!)
So when I (hopefully) awake tomorrow, SELLOUT will officially be out. It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked on something. I put everything I had into it. I should have more to say right now but I just feel drained. It’s funny, I had months to plan every minute detail of this release, yet I never gave much thought to how I’d spend the actual publication day. I guess I’ll turn my phone off and go drive around a while. Maybe I’ll swing by the libraries and coffee shops where I spent entire days writing this thing and just... I don’t know, relax. As for the book itself, well, it’s your problem now!
Alright I’m gonna wrap this yammering up before I wind up getting too sentimental. Here’s the last thing I’ll say for now: There is probably an endless number of paths I could’ve taken where my life would’ve gone so terribly wrong. Maybe I’d be working some soul-sucking government job or staring out an office window somewhere, wishing I’d not given up on my dreams so easily. But instead I lucked out and took the one path in which I get to do this weird, amazing, and deeply rewarding thing for a living. I need a word for the feeling beyond gratitude. Thank you.
Anyway, play me off this soapbox, Piebald. Later!
Pre-order my forthcoming book, SELLOUT, here:
Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Goodreads
SELLOUT is out now.
Hooray! Looking forward to reading it!