Ketchup

First of all, here's a sight to warm my heart for the holidays. Plague Zone is being racked on the New In Paperback towers nationwide in Barnes & Noble, which is a sweet triumph. This kind of display space is hotly contested, especially during the holiday shopping season, so I'm excited as heck that Penguin USA got behind the book. Go team!

Borders did not buy into Zone as heavily, so you won't find it on their front-of-store tables, but Borders has been in financial trouble for a good while now and they're slashing employees as well as inventory and I'm not exactly Stephen King, so this decision is just to be expected. I'm pleased enough that they're stocking 3 - 5 copies of Zone per store.

It's been a nutty week and a half. First of all, we had our Zone release party at my local Borders, where they've taken great care of me for the past few years. If you walk into their giant corner store in Pleasant Hill, California, you'll find a display of Carlson novels large enough to choke a herd of elephants, all of 'em autographed, too. The books, I mean. Not the elephants. Despite it being Thanksgiving weekend, we had a nice crowd of 20 people, including several complete strangers and one stone fan in particular who drove down to meet me. Thank you, Captain Bornmann!

In the meantime, like you haven't had enough of me already, Jeffrey's all over the net. You can find essays and interviews at

John Scalzi's Whatever

The Penguin USA Science Fiction & Fantasy Home Page

and The Penguin USA Daily Blog

Feast! Feast your eyes!

Coming soon, I've also recently taped appearances on Sci Fi Overdrive and NBC's "Tech Now." I'm also slated to appear live on "Good Day Sacramento" this Saturday morning around 7 - 7:30am leading into my event at Book Lovers in town at 1pm. Be there or be triangular!

More soon.

Labels: Barnes and Noble, Borders Books, PLAGUE ZONE

So I stumbled upon this today, which should be of great interest to any writer or editor or bookworm types.

I guess there has been much hue and cry and flamewars and hollering on the blogosphere, but I’m oblivious until weeks later. Typical. But I thought this analysis of the book chains was veeeery interesting in a grim, cold-eyed, nuts-and-bolts kind of way.

Labels: book ordering, Borders Books, Publishing, the writing life