This may be a temporary thing, but David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published novel The Pale King appears to be shipping now from Amazon, more than two weeks ahead of the official tax day publication date. Update: From the official Pale King Facebook page: the book “doesn’t have a one day laydown: stores can sell it as soon as it’s in their shop.” So looks like the book is now available everywhere. Do you have your copy yet?
The Pale King Is Shipping
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“‘I just want to be normal,’ she said, even though she had amazing powers and a super-family and was mega-gorgeous and better than normal in every way and the entire book would be terrible if she were normal and she had no conception of what normal was to begin with.” At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg lists flaws only a protagonist could have.
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I have my copy, although it’s a review copy directly from the publisher. The ship date on my Amazon pre-order is supposedly today or tomorrow.
The ship date on mine is also today– for those in NYC and willing to resist the temptation of Amazon’s discounts, St. Mark’s Books was selling them last night…)
Wow, Hachette, way to screw independent bookstores (many of which are planning big release day parties for The Pale King) out of sales by shipping to Amazon first.
Rachel, as you’ll see from the comment above yours, it appears that Hachette shipped to ALL bookstores ahead of the listed pub date, including indies like St. Mark’s Books in NYC.
But the bookshops that announced release day events are still screwed; they have the copies, but likely would have sold more if there had been a true release date. So: What Rachel Said.
Dreezer, that is true. Hadn’t thought about that.
I work at an indie, and I understand our books shipped today and will be here next week. So yeah, we can sell before the 15th, but not as early as Amazon.
But do you think there are really many people buying it this early from Amazon who hadn’t already pre-ordered it and wouldn’t be buying it in-store anyway?