Our "people" are hard at work working on the cover photo. See the pic above in the banner? I took that a few weeks ago. The purple camera on the map below is where I was standing...
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A lot of our book takes place in this area, plus it made for a great picture, we thought, showing the light tower with the reeds in front of it.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Quotes
Check out the praise we've gotten so far. Thanks Karen, Allan, and Jeff....
“DIRTY WATER is like a David Ortiz at-bat with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. The Smiths provide a unique take on the 2007 championship season, weaving mystery around the mystique of Fenway Park. Score this one a hit.”
Jeff Goldberg, Red Sox beat reporter
The Hartford Courant
"DIRTY WATER is a solid intricately plotted mystery speckled with the 2007 World Championship Red Sox and a backdrop of Fenway Park. What more could you want?”
Karen E. Olson
The Annie Seymour mysteries
“DIRTY WATER features murder, blackmail, a blog and baseball, and expands to include the seamy underside of recruiting foreign ballplayers. The narrative coalesces in a finale as intense and satisfying as a Red Sox-Yankees September showdown.”
Allan Wood
“The Joy of Sox” blog
“DIRTY WATER is like a David Ortiz at-bat with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. The Smiths provide a unique take on the 2007 championship season, weaving mystery around the mystique of Fenway Park. Score this one a hit.”
Jeff Goldberg, Red Sox beat reporter
The Hartford Courant
"DIRTY WATER is a solid intricately plotted mystery speckled with the 2007 World Championship Red Sox and a backdrop of Fenway Park. What more could you want?”
Karen E. Olson
The Annie Seymour mysteries
“DIRTY WATER features murder, blackmail, a blog and baseball, and expands to include the seamy underside of recruiting foreign ballplayers. The narrative coalesces in a finale as intense and satisfying as a Red Sox-Yankees September showdown.”
Allan Wood
“The Joy of Sox” blog
Sunday, June 15, 2008
On Amazon
Seeing your name on Amazon.com is pretty cool. My mom's been on there for years, but now I get to see my own name there. Weird. Here's the Amazon page for our book.
There's no cover image yet, and at first the title was listed without the subtitle. And when you click my name, two books come up. Dirty Water, and a Yoga book. Apparently, someone with my name contributed to a book about doing Yoga while driving. Surely, some people will think I'm the same guy. Kind of like how there's another Jere Smith in Seattle who does artwork--I'm guessing at least one person who knew me in the past has written to this guy thinking it was me.
It will also be fun to check the sales rank. When it first appeared, we were in the millions. One pre-sale we knew about kicked it up to around 150,000, before it slowly fell all the way back. Of course, we haven't even started promoting, and the book doesn't come out until August, so I'm not too worried about the ranking at this point. But if one sale put it that high, imagine what even ten sales will do. That's the thing about their ranking system--it's very "what have you done for me lately."
Of course, we encourage everybody to buy the book at their local bookstore! I'll post some of those and their site addresses as they get the book in....
There's no cover image yet, and at first the title was listed without the subtitle. And when you click my name, two books come up. Dirty Water, and a Yoga book. Apparently, someone with my name contributed to a book about doing Yoga while driving. Surely, some people will think I'm the same guy. Kind of like how there's another Jere Smith in Seattle who does artwork--I'm guessing at least one person who knew me in the past has written to this guy thinking it was me.
It will also be fun to check the sales rank. When it first appeared, we were in the millions. One pre-sale we knew about kicked it up to around 150,000, before it slowly fell all the way back. Of course, we haven't even started promoting, and the book doesn't come out until August, so I'm not too worried about the ranking at this point. But if one sale put it that high, imagine what even ten sales will do. That's the thing about their ranking system--it's very "what have you done for me lately."
Of course, we encourage everybody to buy the book at their local bookstore! I'll post some of those and their site addresses as they get the book in....
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Book Update/Mitchell Report
We have galleys! Also known as advance reading copies of our book, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery (by me, Jere Smith, and my mom, "real" writer Mary-Ann Tirone Smith). We'll be sending out copies to some of your more famous types hoping to get some good quotes. My mom has some great connections what with her being a legit author for the last few decades. So we know we'll get some good ones--in fact, we already have gotten some that appear on the galley itself, from Allan Wood (Joy of Sox), Jeff Goldberg (Hartford Courant), and Karen Olson (mystery writer). As well as a couple quotes hyping my blog from Michael Leggett (Random Fandom) and John Quinn (Quinn Media Machine). Thanks to all of those people, and we'll see who else we'll end up with... (Amazing Larry called it a real snoozer...and no that's not the "real" cover in the pic, obviously.) The book will be available in August despite the "official" pub. date of September. Lots more news to come.Last night, the Institute for International Sport (whose publishing arm is Hall of Fame Press, the publisher of our book) held the launch party for the '08 US Scholar-Athlete Games in Providence. I went down and met my mom there (she was honored as "author of the year"), and we got to meet your favorite ex-senator and mine, George Mitchell, who delivered the keynote address. He was really nice, accepted our galley, and told me he'd gone to a couple of Sox games this past weekend. It was weird to be one minute shaking hands with "the senator" while a cameraman filmed away, and then next wiping your mouth with your tenth napkin over at Johnny Rocket's. (They have an awesome veggie burger now).
Anyway, George is a pretty funny guy. During his speech he talked about growing up the younger brother of super-athletes who were local legends. As he grew up he realized he couldn't play like his siblings, and quickly became known as "Johnny Mitchell's little brother, the one who's no good." So now he's quite proud to be elected into the Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame--he finally has something he can rub in their faces, sports-wise. (But come on, how many pages is the Johnny Mitchell Report?)
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