Sunday, September 23, 2007

If You Happen to be Passing Through Sligo...

Brian McGilloway was kind enough to drop me a note telling me he found several copies of Shock and Awe sitting in the Just Published section of Keohane's Books in Sligo. I never expected to hear my book was on the shelves in Ireland--the Irish, of course, being the real owners of the English language--so I'm jazzed to an embarrassing degree.

I'm hoping the fact that Shock and Awe's epigraph is from WB Yeats (we had to pay his estate for four lines of verse, which made more sense back when the title was Smite the Waters, but it was money well-spent anyhow) will give me some street cred with the locals. Yo, Willy Butler--howzit hangin', dawg?

Speaking of Mr McGilloway, his debut novel Borderlands (which was selected by The Times as a Best Summer Read, and I sure can't argue with them) seems to have continued doing good business. A few months ago, it sold to the Japanese publisher Hayakawa, which is one of the top Asian publishers of American and European novels. Best of all, though, it has even broken through the walls of Fortress New York, becoming the first MNW title to be onsold to an American publisher. Thomas Dunne Books, a well-known imprint of St Martin's Press, has not only bought Borderlands for hardback publication next year, but has also bought the hardback rights to his follow-on Gallows Lane (which is planned for MNW publication in April 2008). There are plans for both to come out in US paperbacks as well.

I'd like to pretend my interest in this topic is entirely selfless, but the truth is I'm hoping Brian has blown a big enough hole in the North American defences that some of the rest of us can sneak through the breach behind him. Little Rock, Arkansas, here we come...

8 comments:

Jake Jesson said...

Halfway through S&A (hey, I've had to take breaks to read the trillion books required for my English classes), I share your hope for an added reason - even with the British quotation marks (zomgwtf?), the book itself seems, in some ephemeral sense, irredeemably "American". 'Twould only be fitting on the shelves of an Amerrykun bookstore.

Faye L. Booth said...

Shock and Awe's epigraph is from WB Yeats (we had to pay his estate for four lines of verse...
Really? Unless I'm much mistaken, my Poe and Bierce epigraphs came free. Just shows - some dead people are more tight-fisted than others. ;)

F

David Isaak said...

Hey, Jake--

Wirte you congressman! Bring the book home!

David Isaak said...

Hi, Faye...

Some dead people are deader than others, too. I guess Yeats (who hailed from Sligo, of course) still has a functioning estate.

Every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, copyright terms are all extended. This will apparently continue forever.

Of course, we don't know for sure that Bierce is dead, do we? If he isn't, he'd be 150 years old or so, but really grouchy people often live forever.

Anonymous said...

WOW.
It seems that your novel is invading all the English-speaking countries. What about the rest of the world?
If you send me a few copies, I shall sneak in the major bookstores of my region and place your book in the front window. With a little help from your friends, you might conquer the whole world!

David Thayer said...

Greeks and Romans are handy for quotes. From a copyright point of view those guys are up shit creek.

David Isaak said...

Hi May--

Now there's a guerilla marketing plan in action!

David Isaak said...

Hi, David

I'm surprised Disney hasn't managed to snap up the copyrights on at least some of the the Graeco-Roman goods. But you're right, from now on it's Cato for me.

(The Roman one. Not the one from the Green Lantern. Nor the one form the Pink Panther movies. Or are those all the same guy?)