Wow. Yesterday I had a huge, heavy box from Tor. The only thing I could think was that it was ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) of In the Midnight Hour, but I was sure I must be wrong because I know most houses don't send their authors many ARCs. I opened it up and it was ARCs! A boatload of them! I'm still amazed and trying to figure out what to do with so many. I started soliciting opinions, then I realized that I better email the publicity woman at my publisher and coordinate with her so that I don't mail them to the same places she does. I have a few review sites that I want to hit and I was reminded of bookstores, but I'm sure Tor mails to both as well.
It was like Christmas last night with this box of pretty ARCs and they had my back cover copy on them, which I thought was really good and doesn't give away one of the secrets. Although I'm sure more than one reviewer will give that away since it's revealed in chapter 2 and my understanding is if it happens in the first three chapters, it's fair game. Ah, well, I console myself with the fact that most people don't read reviews and will be surprised.
One of my favorite memories about this proposal is one of my writing buddies shrieking over email when she read the scene with the secret. I want my readers to (hopefully) have that same kind of experience and if reviewers give it away, it'll ruin that. Ah, well, there's really nothing I can do about that, but hope for the best. BTW, this is the one element that most editors couldn't wrap their mind around, so there you go.
