American Gods

For some of them I wrote personal notes to go with them. Partly because I know I respond well to notes from the author, and partly because it was fun to say some hellos. (In a couple of cases I even got to cheat and write a fan letter, or an “I’ve not seen you for ten years — howthefuckareyou?” letter). For some I didn’t. For a few people I sent e-mails. The others went out from Jennifer Hershey, my editor, or Jack Womack, the book’s publicist at HarperCollins (and a wonderful author in his own right).

And, as you’ve already seen if you’re reading this journal, blurbs came in — most of them accompanied by letters saying that they really really liked the book (just in case I was worried that they were only saying nice things about it from a sense of duty).

As the deadline for the book jacket to be finalised approached, we made a few calls to remind people. (I phoned Terry Gilliam, mostly because I like talking to Terry Gilliam, to discover that he was on holiday for two weeks somewhere far away from a telephone. So no luck there.)

(A minor anecdotal interruption here: in 1989 Gollancz sent Terry Gilliam a copy of Good Omens for a blurb. Somewhere the letter and the book got separated and Terry read the book assuming it was something he’d been sent as a possible movie. . . and now, twelve years later, he’s gone on holiday having just finished the second draft of the Good Omens movie script. Proving that the world is an odd place, but not unpleasant.)

The blurb deadline has pretty much, I think, come and gone on American Gods — if people say nice things about it now we can use it in the advertising, but they may have to wait for the paperback until people know that they liked it. However, one that I’ll really try to get onto the hardback cover arrived out of the blue today, entirely unsolicited. Not just unsolicited but accompanied by a phone call reminding me that the party in question does not give blurbs.

“Gaiman’s new novel walked in the door on Friday afternoon. By Saturday evening I had eaten it in one gulp. AMERICAN GODS: alarming, charming, even winsome; Gaiman: serially inventive, surprising, purely remarkable. And, oh, is it well-written.”

Harlan Ellison

16 April 2001.

I signed the sheets of paper for the limited edition from the box of 750 sheets. I signed and I signed. Eventually I asked my poor assistant if she wouldn’t mind counting them, because I was sure I’d signed a lot more than 750 sheets. Turns out the box contained 2,500 of the things. Mostly I’m just signing them. Sometimes I’m drawing eyes, too. Very occasionally I’ve started doodling and drawing, mostly so far drawings of a very crusty Uncle Sam. And most of the time I’m using other colour inks than black, so that the people who pick them up don’t go “Oh, they just print those signatures”. They don’t. It’s me.posted by Neil Gaiman 9:25 PM

Sunday, April 29, 2001

So here’s the speech I made tonight, introducing the Nebula Awards. This was the text I went from, and I sort of smoothed it up as I went. ‘Black Pudding’ was changed to ‘blood sausage’ because few people knew what a black pudding was. [Note — the ‘Harper Collins Royalty Statements’ is just a cheap laugh line, and not intended as a slur or commentary in any way on Harper Collins royalty statements; and anyway, I have been assured that Simon and Schuster’s royalty statements are worse.]

It occurred to me recently that if I were now to meet myself at the age of 12 – the age, as all of you here know well, that has been called the Golden Age of Science Fiction – I would, I have no doubt, be an extreme disappointment to my twelve year old self.

He might be impressed by the fact that I’m a writer – but then, he knew he was going to be a writer. That I’m that one of a relatively rare clan, a writer who makes his living writing, would make no difference to my 12 year old self. He is, after all, convinced that the simple action of writing a short story and getting it published is like winning the grand prize at the end of the Quiz Show: the roof opens up and goods and money tumble down. He also has a strong suspicion that supermarkets, bank managers, and car lots will, on production of a book with an author’s name on the spine, allow the author the pick of the best of what they have, and never charge him a penny.

(My 12 year old self has not met any authors.)

As I said, he knows he wants to be a writer. And, with a 12 year old arrogance that is utter and absolute, he knows what kind of an author he wants to be. He wants to be the kind of author who wins Nebula Awards.