3000

I have returned from a week away at a festival in France to find finished UK editions of Half a King, and don’t they look lovely?

Ooh, they glitter and shine and feel velvety beneath the fingers. On the left, trade paperback for export, on the right, hardcover for the UK market. The hardcover’s an interesting size, what I believe they call a ‘Short Royal’ in the trade – same width as a standard hardcover but slightly shorter, slightly squarer. There’s also a rather lovely map on the endpapers…

I dropped into the publisher to sign a few copies for retailers, chiefly for Waterstones in the UK:

3000 copies. Those things on the tables? They’re books. Those white bags? They’re ten books each. It was what is called in the trade a metric fuckton of books. I once signed a thousand at the warehouse. This was a lot more. Three times as many, in fact. Here’s just a few of them, closer up…

It took me a day to do 2600, then I stopped back in the following day to do the other 400. There was some soreness in the elbow, shoulder and hand, but overall it was a good deal less painful than I was expecting, and my thanks to Natasha, Eleanor, Tim, Tom, and all the other folks who helped sticker, fold, pass, box, and otherwise achieve this not inconsiderable task of logistics.

Should YOU desire to own one of these 3000 entirely one off, utterly unique, personally inscribed editions of Half a King, you will find them available for pre-order right over here…