Update: Come Out and Play ~ Limited Edition Signed Hardcovers!

Okay, everybody, this might be a bit of a long post (for me, anyway), but I NEED you to please hang with me. If you don’t, you’ll go to pre-order your hardcover copy of Come Out and Play and be like “WHY ISN’T IT ON THIS SITE???” I’ll then have to point to this post with that look of disappointment that only a tired parent can give and I really don’t want to do that.

So…

First, I want to THANK the fans of Dare You to Lie/Don’t Say a Word. You guys are amazing. When Tor Teen declined to buy the final two books in this series, I was devastated. Book one was a lead title and poised for great things….until my publisher decided only months before its release that they weren’t going to push contemporary titles anymore, leaving Ky and the gang out in the cold. So, I did what any bitter author would do: I rallied and hustled and helped its debut week perform well. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough.

We, as readers, have all been in the position at some point where a series we love gets axed because of poor/underperforming sales (although this is VERY much because of how the publishing game is played and not the books themselves) and know how disheartening it is to feel that strange sense of abandonment and frustration. I mean, we read those books and loved them and then nothing. Just poof…gone. It’s happened to me a time or two and I’m clearly still not over it (I hope you’re handling it better than I am).

Being a relentless type A, I hate not seeing things through, especially when I’m invested in a project, which is definitely the case with this cast of characters. So (after bitching about my situation for a few weeks), I pulled myself up and dusted myself off and got down to business. I mean, I started my career as a self-published author (one of those early ones that took off in 2011)….I should know how to put a book out myself, right? I already have editors and cover designers and formatters. I know roughly how long it should take me to write book three (I think it actually makes book #29 that I’ve written to date). I know when to book the various things that needed to be done. And I still retain the rights to the characters and world (my agent and I made sure this was the case before I signed just in case something like this went down,) so legally.

So I wrote the book. That’s the good news.

The bad news is I did NOT know anything about hardcover formatting and printing. Paperbacks? Yes. But hardcover is an entirely different beast—one I’ve been working hard to learn about over the past year to make sure those of you that want one to complete your collection can get it. The downside to this is that it’s expensive. I’m not Macmillan. I don’t have an in-house printing press or direct access to one to keep costs down. In truth, to manufacture the hardcover for Ky (which came in at a whopping 111,000 words!) it’s going to cost me more per book that you’d pay for it in stores if printed by a big house like Macmillan….and that’s BEFORE shipping.

I think you can see where I’m going with this…

I’ve thought a LOT about how to handle this because putting hardcover on a site like Amazon means I give up ALL RIGHTS to pricing, which could effectively make it so I LOSE money on sales. Not a stellar business plan for me. I’m looking into Barnes and Noble as well as stores in other countries to see what their rules are, but I don’t imagine they’ll be great either. It’s a bummer, but it’s a reality I’m doing my best to navigate. I’m a one man publishing house at the moment, and even with the help of my PA, we can only do so much.

Which is how I came to the conclusion that the BEST way for people to order hardcover books is through my website directly. This will limit WHERE I can ship to, but it DOES allow me to SIGN COPIES, which I know some of you love!

IT ALSO ALLOWS ME TO SEND THOSE COPIES OUT BEFORE RELEASE DAY!!!

And that leads me to my next point. If you want to order a SIGNED (or unsigned) COPY OF COME OUT AND PLAY, I will be doing a LIMITED PRINT RUN before the book releases, complete with a CUSTOM, FIVE-CHARACTER SKETCH INSIDE that will only be included in the hardcover edition!!! I need at least SIX WEEKS to get that order printed and shipped to me so I can turn them around and ship them to you BEFORE THE NOVEMBER 16th RELEASE DATE! Depending on how quickly the printer turns them around, that could be a couple days or more than a WEEK…possibly two. It’s like getting an ARC of a book you’re REALLLLLLY excited about. I’ve done my best to make sure this can happen (Ky is being formatted RIGHT NOW so she can go to print ASAP), but I only have a limited time to leave orders open for this first run so I can deliver on time.

The purchase link for the hardcovers can be found below. The hardcover special edition pricing (which includes shipping in the continental US) is $35/book. If you’re abroad, please know that I’m looking into ways for you to get a copy and will update you when I know more.

Please know that I really do appreciate all the messages and emails and blog comments I’ve gotten over the past year or more. They’ve driven me to deliver what I THINK will be your favorite book of the series.

…and make sure you read the dedication in the front.

This book is for you guys!

GAMES AREN’T FOR KIDS—THEY’RE FOR KILLERS.

For Kylene Danners, there’s only one fate worse than death: entering a beauty pageant. So when her friends (and a shot at a twenty-thousand dollar college scholarship) push her into one, she assumes she’s found hell on earth—until girls start dropping out under suspicious circumstances, and Ky finds herself smack dab in the middle of another dangerous mystery—a twisted web of duplicity and deceit far more deadly than she expected.

COME OUT AND PLAY, the third young adult mystery novel in the Hometown Antihero series.

Coming November 16, 2021

PREORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!