You are most cordially invited to my slightly different author event on April 11 at 2 PM, celebrating not just the release of my latest novel, “By the Sea,” but also the art of fiction and one of the finest independent bookstores in the country — Malcolm & Christine Bell’s Mystery & imagination/Bookfellows in Glendale, California.
The slightly different bit? The only copies of By the Sea, either hardcover or trade paperback, that will be available that day will be those that you have PRE-ORDERED FROM BOOKFELLOWS by calling Christine at 818-545-0121 by March 25.
Now why in the hell would we do this? Because I’ve arranged with my publisher, Handsome David Niall Wilson of Crossroad Press, to give Bookfellows a larger than normal bookstore discount for those pre-orders. So, every book you buy boosts a bit of the profit going to the store. And you get a discount as well. The hardcover retails at $29.99, but you’ll get it for $26.00. The trade paperback retails for $16.99, but you’ll get it for $15.00.
“By the Sea” is a modern comic adult fairy tale with an ensemble cast of Cinderellas. Instead of a kingdom by the sea, our story takes place in and around a residential hotel by the sea. The architecturally eclectic Briers Hotel is situated on Leech Beach, a not particularly inviting beach, being often fog-bound and always scruffy. But it’s the perfect setting for our Cinderellas, male and female, who put up with the scruffy-ness of life while striving to make it through their various personal seaside fogs. Theater; art; antiques; old movies; sex; more sex; death; fast and slow cars, chicken shit and cow poop; military bearing and erotic emissions — not to mention the wicked witch, the sea serpent by the sea shore, the village ogre, the village idiot, and several Prince Charmings — all figure into this merry tale with a multitude of happy endings.
More information on “By the Sea” can be had on my blog at:http://tinyurl.com/
Bookfellows was Ray Bradbury’s favorite bookstore in his late years, as I detailed in one of my blogs on The Huffington Post, which you can find athttp://tinyurl.com/rbfav. But the important thing to note about Malcolm & Christine’s gem of a bookshop, is that it is the only independent bookstore in the Los Angeles area, maybe in the country, that has an emphasis on fiction. They have a heavy stock of fiction including mysteries, thrillers & suspense; science fiction & fantasy (the Mystery & Imagination half) and mainstream & literary fiction (the Bookfellows half). This makes Bookfellows an incredibly important resource for lovers of this most important of art forms.
Our event will be introduced by Jeff Cannata, fine actor, popular internet TV host, and brilliant podcaster (We Have Concerns — a top iTunes podcast), who also happens to have recorded a wonderful performance reading my novel, “Traveling in Space,” for the audiobook book edition which came out last year.
I will speak on moving from genre to genre in the writing of fiction, and read from Chapter One of “By the Sea.”
We will have munchies and libations, and there will be a RAFFLE!!
When you pick up your pre-ordered copy of By the Sea from Christine you will be given a raffle ticket, and at the end of the event we will raffle off a few obvious and a few unique items — detailed in the various postings below.
If you cannot make it on April 11, or live outside of the Los Angeles area, but would still like to support this maker of fiction and the bookstore that loves my kind of scribbler, call Christine at 818-545-0121 and order the book by March 25, and I’ll sign it for you that day. Christine will then send it off to you poste-haste.
I do hope you can join us on April 11 at 2 PM for a celebration of telling tales, creating characters, crafting scenes, and of this most wonderful of bookstores wherein such arts are cherished and given a clean and well-lighted place.