Lawrence BlockLawrence Block News Update November 1998
About the Author
1998, my personal year of wretched excess, is going out with a bang. With Hit Man, Tanner On Ice, and Everybody Dies all still on store shelves (although Hit Man is getting harder to find; most stores have sold through)---anyway, with the three of them Out There, a fourth is coming. Dutton's hardcover of the long-out-of-print The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian will ship in a couple of weeks, and the paperback of The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza is already shipping.
If you're having trouble with your Christmas shopping, I've got to say you're not paying attention.
I'm just back from a tour that started with Bouchercon the end of September, and I'm exhausted, but I'm not complaining. If a book tour isn't exhausting, you're not doing it right. I have some appearances scheduled locally this month, plus a mini-tour to Belfast and London. Here's the schedule:

I have some signings coming up in Florida in January; you'll get updates in plenty of time. In May Lynne and I will be going to Australia, where I'll be doing something at the Sydney Writers Festival in (duh!) Sydney, May 17-23. As a result, we'll miss Writers Week in Listowel, Co. Kerry, this year.
THE RULES OF THE SIGNING... Did you ever read Walter Walker's fine book, The Rules of the Knife Fight? It had a dandy epigraph quote: "There are no rules in a knife fight."
Well, I've established a new rule for signings and other public appearances. Because I've written so much for so many years, dealers and collectors are apt to show up with suitcases and shopping bags and cartons of stuff for me to sign. I've always been obliging, if occasionally ill-mannered, except for a blanket refusal to sign pseudonymous work that I don't choose to acknowledge. But, if it has my name on it, or one of my two acknowledged pen names (Chip Harrison and Paul Kavanagh), I'll sign it.
But here's the deal. Of course I'll sign anything, paperback or hardcover, purchased that day at the store where the signing takes place. And, for each new copy of a current hardcover purchased at the signing, I'll sign in addition three items that you've brought from home. If you've got a collection of two dozen books of mine you want signed, I'll be happy to do it---but you'll have to buy eight new books. (That's what a collector in LA did two weeks ago; his Christmas shopping's all taken care of.) If you've got thirty remaindered books of mine you scooped up for $3.98 at Barnes & Noble, I'll sign them---but you'll have to buy ten new books at the store where I'm signing. (That's what a dealer in Portland did ten days ago.)
I like the way the new system works, and it makes me a lot more cheerful about the whole enterprise. Same goes for the store owners. I wouldn't be surprised to see a whole lot of writers adopt the policy, but right now I do want to give my newsletter readers on- and off-line some advance notice.

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