The Nondating Life

Friday, October 24, 2008

Some Important News About Lil Ol' Me

Today, I just signed the official contract for my first novel with the good folks at Kensington Books. For those of you who've known me awhile, this is NOT the big ol' Jesus novel. Rather, this one's about a Louisiana priest. And before you scream "Leave the church alone," rest assured that no altar boys were molested during the plot of this novel. In essence, it's a light-hearted comedy with a little romance thrown in. It's got some jokes, got some drinking, got some gumbo, got some horsing around, got some insanity and even an elephant.

What it doesn't have right now is a functioning title. We'll be working on that. The book itself needs some slight revisions -- nothing major I hope -- but otherwise it's written.

That said, I'm discovering the book publishing world moves at a snail's pace compared to the fast-paced world of weekly trade magazines (and blogging). Indeed, my agent told me about the deal a month ago. I just received the contract today. The final draft isn't due until February and the book's release date looks to be set for January of 2010. (In the mean time, I'll be starting on a new one)

Because of that, I'll ask you all to withhold your extreme excitement and purchasing power until late next year ... (with the economy the way it is, perhaps you might want to start saving up some pennies!). Once I have a title and a publishing date, I'll bug you all again and start pestering you to buy the damn thing.

Believe it or not, they didn't offer me a 70 gajillion dollar advance, so I've got to keep my day job, start another book and MOST IMPORTANTLY, sell copies when the book does drop. The first print run, I believe, is 25,000 copies. That's a lot of damn books! And I want to sell every damn one of them. At any rate, I'll have all sorts of annoying publicity, marketing, get-out-the-reader ideas the closer publication comes, but until then I'll leave you all alone.

So there you have it. ... not a bad year for Kenny. I got married. I got a book deal. Maybe tonight, I'll win the lottery, but that's probably getting greedy.

I want to thank my blog readers -- especially the ones here at NonDating Life -- for proving I might be better off redirecting my writing energies to making people laugh rather than just trying to piss everyone off.