A first-world disaster story

Publication Day was fun. After months of build-up, spent creating a website called “abookaboutglue”, posting numerous smart articles, creating six new enigmatic teaser videos, firing off network-emails through rigorous spam files and fire-walls, posting on various social media, engaging a Publicist and boring everyone I know with the refrain “did you know I have a new book coming out…on the 4th October”…  The BIG DAY finally arrived, and I sat in dressing gown and slippers waiting for my copy to arrive from Amazon.  And waited.

Nothing.  Then the Linked-in messages and texts started coming in.  “Your book is sold out on Amazon!” I click on the site and yes – it’s not available! “Wait! What, it’s Sold out!” Alas no. Veritably no.

After clicking on the same page for the previous three weeks like a religious fanatic with a Prime addiction, I was somewhat overfamiliar with the “Hot New Releases” pages on Amazon and the categories in which GLUE might feature. At one point in the week before release it was the bestselling ‘Human Resources’ book listed, and sat alongside Ali Agbaal’s new book in ‘Organisational Behaviour’. Now Ali has 4.5 million subscribers on You Tube, so I felt in good company, and sent him a message to say “Ali, we should talk!”   But now Amazon, on the 4th October – nothing, nada, nista, nic, niets!  The book was gone – fallen off all the listings?!  My Publisher helpfully and calmly explains some IT/Systems distribution snafu, which makes me feel no better, so I promptly ate a kilo of dark chocolate and sat in a sauna weeping.

Of course, the book is still available from Routledge, Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org or via your local book store, but I know most of us lazily default to Prime. I have written elsewhere about Bookshop.org who seem genuinely an option by doing less harm to small shops. The book is just about still available in Amazon, via third party sellers, and surprisingly is also already on E-Bay.  But “launch day” quickly felt like the first days of SpaceX.  Full of hope, excitement and grand ambition, quickly dashed on take-off, leaving Mission Control quiet, tired, full of questions. Anyway, the NEW OFFICIAL launch day for GLUE is now 17th October 2023.  We are having a party and more about that will follow on here soon.

In the meantime, the ridiculously expensive HARD BACK edition just landed through the letter box, with a thud. From the Publishers, not Amazon. It looks beautiful.  Like a child at Christmas. But on a shelf, one day to simply gather dust. I need to get over myself. Onwards.