On Tuesday my next book (YOU ARE HERE: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds) came out for preorder and I announced it and then went directly to my shrink’s office because I was afraid of how it would be received and I wanted her to tell me it would all be okay not matter what. And it was. Both because she made me feel better and because when I got back home and looked at the hourly Amazon ratings for YOU ARE HERE I saw it go from #280,000 to #24 and I literally cried with relief that you guys had my back even on something so different as this project. And I celebrated and tweeted it because I knew it would drop back down any second but I wanted to remember that I had an amazing community of people who could make a book go into the top 20’s in three hours.
But then someone told me that it wasn’t #24 anymore and was, in fact, now the #6 bestselling book of the hour. And then it was #4. And then, late in the evening when Hailey and I were night-hunting for Pokemon (Pokemons? Pokemen?) in the park I saw this:
And I screamed out “I’M NUMBER TWO!” – which, admittedly, is a weird thing to scream out in a dark public park. And I considered also yelling “THAT’S NOT A EUPHEMISM FOR POOP” but then I decided not to because Hailey was already embarrassed enough and also, we all know you guys are here playing Pokemon in the middle of the night so maybe stop judging me.
And I don’t know how to thank you. For caring and for supporting me. For buying the book for yourself or others, or putting it on your wish lists for later. For sharing it with others and for being happy with me and celebrating this as a victory for all of us. I’m so incredibly lucky that you are here for me when I share my very deep downward spirals, but you’re just as here for me when I share my moments of joy. That doesn’t always happen for everyone and I want you to know how much this community means to me…in good times and bad. Thank you.
And as I teased in my last post, here’s the final version of the drawing that Dorothy Barker kept trying to lay on top of:
It’s not in the book. It’s just a bonus to thank you for being so great. Feel free to print it out and color it or hang it up or line your bird cage with it. Whatever makes you happy.
Thank you.
PS. And for those of you who are like, “WAIT, YOU ANNOUNCED YOUR NEXT BOOK?” here’s where you can preorder it, and here are some other drawings and a description of why it’s sort of your fault that it exists.
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Indigo
Indiebound
Thank you.