I mentioned Stephen Elliot’s newest book last week for BBCDW and also touched upon the cool project surrounding it’s marketing, but just to recap:

Stephen is circulating copies of his new true-crime memoir to anyone who would care to read it. All you do is email him, prove that you’re a real person, he sends you the book, you get a week to read it and when that week is up you send it to the next person on the list. Pretty cool buzz-generating idea that I will most likely steal in the forthcoming months. So I signed up and just finished it last night and I’m glad that I did.

Not only is this a great book, but it’s a cool thing to be involved with. It’s not too often that the general public not only gets to read advance copies of books but also gets to be given the chance to by the author himself. Which, I think, is the way it should be. You should be able to reach out to these people and have them reach back to you. That’s what creative writing is all about, for me at least. To connect with people. And it really bugs me when authors are reclusive, don’t do interviews, don’t do readings, don’t really make any sort of effort to engage their audience outside of publishing. So it really pumps me up when you see a talented author getting in the mix and reaching out to people.

Anyway. I think this thing is still going on and you should sign up for it so you can be a part of it too.