Today is the Effing Day!

Get my mf book

Today is the fucking day! Eleven months ago I landed a deal with Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S., to republish my originally self-published On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down via their Bantam Books imprint. The original version sold over 50,000 copies, which is an absolute assload for a self-published book. It’s actually a lot for any book.

And then I got a book deal and the new version is so much better than the original. It went through major edits with fantastic editors. There were many other improvements too, including some new stories and a sweet new interior design and at least seven times the number of photos. The pull quotes are really cool too. Check it out:

Regarding the editing process, I’m so happy to have worked with Mary, and I want to give you an example as to why.

First off, she likes my stuff. She told me so when I first met her. “I love your writing” are probably my four favorite words in the English language.

Anyway, when you’re self publishing you have a tendency toward micro-managing shit because, well, you have to. But when it came to working with Mary I said I trust you do what you gotta do and I had track changes turned off and just read what she sent back clean and was like yup this is way better.

But she also kicked my ass on a lot of stuff. Several stories were replaced and a bunch of others were bulked up because I’d half-assed it the first time around. There was one astronomy story in particular, April 10, that she wanted to punt and I was like dafuq that was in the top five for the year. But then I looked and realized that sometimes popular ≠ good. Case in point: Nickelback. Yes I know it’s an old cliché of a joke but I live near where they were spawned you don’t know what I’ve been through.

Anyway, I’d half-assed the story. I’d focused on the scandal over the science. During the rewrite I kept some of the scandal because that was important, but I bulked up the science; what the focus should have been on the first time around. Then the piece became both popular and good.

I wanna tell you to buy my fucking book before I link the astronomy story that got way more better because Mary said hey James not good enough.

Please buy my book. Online, or walk into a store. Today is the day you can get it in a store. Today is also the day you can talk to people in line at that store about the book you’re buying. That kinda thing helps a lot.

Mary doesn’t know I’m writing this I hope she’s not going oh shit James is oversharing again. Here is that much-improved space story I was talking about.

Again, you can pop into a bookstore and pick it up, or find links to purchase at JamesFell.com/books. Makes an awesome gift look at this pretty photo the publisher made: