Biting the hand: Famously disdainful of New York’s publishing industry, Dave Eggers (who re-relocated to San Francisco) has announced that his new novel – his first book since the best-selling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – will be published this month – but don’t count on seeing a copy. (Even the title was still under wraps last week.) In a few weeks, the lucky few who ordered early on the McSweeney’s Website will start receiving one of only 10,000 “specially marked first edition” copies, being printed in Iceland.
Road rules: The new book tracks a couple of Wisconsin slackers, Will and Hand, on a weeklong world tour as they try – and mostly fail – to responsibly give away lots of money, something Eggers knows something about, having given away some of the millions he earned from AHWOSG.
Supply-side economics: Once online orders are filled, the remainder of the “small” print run will ship to independent bookstores. What happens if the 376-page tome becomes another runaway best-seller, and desperate readers and bookstores are left waiting for the next boat from Reykjavík? As the author himself has said, “It could all go horribly, horribly wrong.”
You Shall know our velocity
by Dave Eggers
(McSweeney’s Books; September).