momentum

The Kirkus review was a bigger deal than I thought.

I talked with Agent Lydia yesterday. She told me it's quite a coup to pull off a "clean sweep" of starred reviews the pre-publication industry mags. Kirkus is quite a bit snobbier than Publishers Weekly. Sometimes they're down right snarky. So a star from them is a score indeed.

Anyway, the review sparked a fire at FSG. The head honchos there are going to have a meeting next week to discuss the marketing strategy for my book -- just my book. The other cool thing is that my editor has recently been promoted to editor-in-chief of FSG. So now the top dog in the whole company is going to throw his weight behind me. They're also ordering a second printing of the galleys, which is a pretty big deal, because they're expensive.

I'm not sure what all this means just yet. It's possible they'll be buying display space at Barnes and Noble and such. Agent Lydia wants to push for a radio tour. And I think there'll be a reading tour of fund-raising events for Urban Debate Leagues around the country that'll take me to New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Miami, Austin, Seattle and, hopefully, Chicago, Atlanta and LA.