Publication day — what’s it mean?

Some books have strict on-sale dates, like The Dark Tower, which comes out tomorrow and only tomorrow. Go to a bookstore today and you’re out of luck, mate. You might be fortunate enough to find an all-night bookstore where you can get your fix at midnight-oh-one, or you could have gotten the book at a signing event, but that’s it.

Several years ago, Peter Straub posted to his newsgroup about his surprise at seeing the current novel, The Hellfire Club I think it was, at a bookstore. He didn’t know it was out already. How could that be, we wondered? How could the author not know?

One of my most frequently asked questions of late is: What do you plan to do to celebrate publication day? It’s a question that I haven’t yet found a satisfactory answer for. I’d been increasingly of the belief that publication day would actually be anti-climactic since everything of late has been about the big countdown and on publication day the only thing different is that the book will be on shelves in stores. I already have copies of it. I know it exists. My work on it is finished.

To tie these above three paragraphs together: I’ve been getting scattered reports from people across the country–and as far away as in Sweden–that they have found The Road to the Dark Tower at their local bookstore. Borders seems to be one of the more reliable places, but other shops, too. Everywhere, it seems, but here where I live–I’ve yet to see a copy on a shelf around here. Plenty of From the Borderlands, though. So, publication day doesn’t really have any special meaning for me now, because the book is already out there in many places.

However, I’m not at all disappointed that the book is on shelves now. When people swarm across America tomorrow to buy The Dark Tower, my book is going to be conveniently located nearby, which is what I always wanted. If I’d've had my druthers, my book’s publication date would have been tomorrow anyway, so that it could ride the wave of people buying the final Dark Tower book. Looks like my druthers are working out in the long run!