Tuesday, May 20, 2008

After Today, More on the Tiny White Arm and Such

Hi. It's me again, telling you about the book ONE LAST TIME because today's the day! Driving Sideways is finally in bookstores after 29 long months of incubation!

What people are saying about the book:

"Driving Sideways is a gorgeous novel -- I LOVED it!!"
-- Marian Keyes, author of Anybody Out There?

"A hopeful and hilarious debut...Jess Riley may well be my new favorite author."
--Jen Lancaster, author of Bitter is the New Black

"Smart and funny without being forced, sentimental without being maudlin."
--Booklist magazine

“It made me blush several times.”
--my Mother-in-law Patti

Target also picked the book as a Break-Out title this summer! But it won’t be on their shelves until June 19, so don’t go there today unless you need toothpaste and paper towels or something.

If you buy it today, it comes with the following:

  • A spine (inspiration for those of us born in the self-deprecating wing of the hospital)

  • No jacket, because who needs one? It’s finally spring in Wisconsin!

  • 111,840 pre-screened, carefully-selected words placed in a pleasant order

  • My eternal gratitude and a glass of wine if I ever meet you or see you again. And since you’re reading this, I really do hope I meet you or see you again. Because I probably like you. Or whatever.
So you could take your OWN expensive road trip this summer, or you could buy Driving Sideways (for less than the cost of four gallons of gas!) and live vicariously through some people I made up. But if you do take your own road trip, you can also bring my book to read while you wait for your car to be fixed. In case it breaks down, like the Toyota did when I took the very same roadtrip with my BFF Cindy. And you can listen to the Driving Sideways iMix, with songs that I listened to while writing the book, plus a few I listened to while just kind of driving around. Sideways.

So if you would like to buy the book for yourself or many other people in your life (and I hope you do because I would like to make you laugh and/or blush), you can order it on amazon, Powells, Barnes & Noble, Target, Booksense, or Random House.

Or you can pick it up at your local bookstore. If they don’t have it, throw a tantrum.

I’m totally joking. Please don’t do that.

Unless you’re a toddler. Then you might have an excuse.

But wait! There’s more!

Tuesday I am guest-blogging, providing A’s to some excellent Q's, or otherwise being featured in some way, shape, or form (not a large sphere, despite all the cheese curds I ate late night) with Tia, Caryn, Sue, DeeMarie, Shelly at Not the Daddy, The Debutante Ball, Suzy Soro, and TX Poppet.

Edited to add these Wednesday & Thursday blog stops: an interview at Pam Writes Romance and with Joanne Rendell, and a guest blog at Drunk Writer Talk...and JellyJules has made my signature summer salad (now with delicious photo!). Tomorrow, check out Mommy Confidential, Gorillabuns, and December, who will be listing thirteen essentials to take on a road trip.

Also, the blatant self-promotion will eventually taper off and this blog will soon return to its regularly scheduled programming involving my dog, things I found in the backyard, recipe mishaps, and something you WON'T want to miss next Tuesday. I promise, you'll like it.

37 comments:

  1. Now you tell me.

    I'll take "Information I could have used two hours ago" for 200, please, Alex.

    I went to Target today to buy the book. (Even though I preordered it from Amazon, but it's not here yet, so I'm an instant gratification gal and home with a sick kid, and I HAD TIME TO READ IT TODAY, DAMMIT!)

    It wasn't there. I marched up to the Target dude and demanded to know where Driving Sideways was and that I knew it was going to be one of their breakout books in June, so why wasn't it sitting right there in the new releases section?!! With heavenly music and floodlights pointing on it?!! He said it's not one they'd be carrying yet - but he only had the list for the next two weeks. I was incensed.

    It almost was a tantrum. But not quite. So now I'll wait for my amazon delivery, because the actual bookstores are too far away to drive with a sick kid.

    End of tirade.

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  2. Anonymous2:51 PM

    Congratulations! I've never met you and yet am wriggling in my office chair with glee over your Book Triumph. You're also on my Amazon wishlist. Your book will be purchased long before any of those get-thee-ass-off-thine-couch DVDs I so optimistically added.

    Congrats again, and enjoy the day!

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  3. Anonymous2:59 PM

    congrats! that is totally awesome! i can't wait to read it!

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  4. Congratulations, Jess! I'm off to buy it on Amazon RIGHT NOW.

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  5. Congrats! (found you via Shelly at Notthedaddy) I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy!

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  6. OK Jess, my dog and I walked the 1 1/2 miles to Borders during my lunch break, got one of their 3 copies, and I started reading it on the way home from the store! Yes, I am indeed one of those geeks who walk and read and hope no one hits them with their car, but honestly, I keep the dog close by, and I don't read while crossing intersections...

    So I'm about 1 1/2 chapters in, and so far, YAY! I'm pissed about Leah's purse getting stolen, and I laughed at the reference to the Hugging Saint, because I assume you're talking about Ama, and my step mom has hugged her...twice. And my step mom isn't your fruity hippy type, either. Yes, she teaches yoga for a living, but she's also very type A and an awesome business woman and so on.

    Whew. OK, time to leave the book behind for a bit and do my job type work, but yay! I'm the first commenter to have gotten your book for reals!

    Oh, and I totally pimped you on my blog today, too. ;)

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  7. Yes, but how do I get an autographed copy?!

    How bout I buy it, read it, and then send it to you? ;)

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  8. Little story. After Joy Behar wrote her first book, she and I were in LA shopping and we came upon a bookstore WITHOUT her book in the front window. She marched up to the desk, asked for the manager and said, "I'd like to autograph 20 books for you and then will you put my book in the front window?" HE DID!

    Congratulations!! I have a winner for your book in my contest, although I'm not announcing til tomorrow in case some others guess the same one and then I get to draw names out of a hat. WOO WOO!

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  9. I'm buying it! I'm adding it to my Amazon cart RIGHT this minute.
    This must be BEYOND exciting for you.

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  10. I bought it! I bought it! I went to the Brookfield, WI Barnes & Noble and it wasn't on the shelf, despite what the little kiosk search thingy told me. So I asked at the info desk and they said: "Somebody else was just looking for that book!" (Isn't that COOL?!) They apparently hadn't yet put it on the shelf, but she went in back and got me a copy. Did you feel your wallet get a little heavier in the last two hours? Even my sarcastic teenage daughter said, when she heard that I was buying a book by a blogfriend: "Oh, that's pretty cool." And it IS! I can't wait to read it!!!

    Yay Jess! I hope you're having a giant cocktail and celebrating today!!!!!

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  11. Anonymous5:47 PM

    Congratulations! I wrote about your big news here

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  12. Anonymous6:50 PM

    My Amazon order says it will be arriving on May 23...I can't wait that long!!!

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  13. I'm delurking to say I just ordered it. You don't know me, but I'm a Wisconsin native as well, and a good friend of mine apparently plays video games online with your husband. (He's the one who sent me to your blog a while back in the first place.)

    Is that the creepiest delurk comment ever? Oh, lord, I hope not. In any case, congrats!!

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  14. Hooray! Tra-la! Congrats! I'm going to get it at the store because I want to see it IN THE STORE!

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  15. CONGRATULATIONS, Jess!

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  16. I just read about your debut from Larramie at Seize a Daisy. Congratulations! I'm looking forward to reading DRIVING SIDEWAYS -- it sounds like my kind of book. :)

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  17. Anonymous8:39 PM

    Yeah Jess!!! It's finally your big day!

    Fee

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  18. This is my second comment on your blog! I mean, congratulations on your big day arriving! Anyway, I loved the excerpt at random house, look forward to the book and love your blog!

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  19. Anonymous10:54 AM

    Woo-Hoo! A wonderful book, a beautiful new website and a Target must-read? To say I'm inspired would be an understatement!

    Congratulations!!!

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  20. Anonymous12:33 PM

    Hey, love the new template!

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  21. I can't wait to celebrate with you in person!

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  22. Congratulations! I love the new blog look, and I'm so very impressed (and jealous) that you're the proud author of a Target Breakout Book!!!! Yay!

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  23. WAIT!!! I was supposed to list 13 essential to take on a road trip? Man, I don't follow directions very well....

    Here they are: alcohol X 13. There you go!

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  24. ooh - shiny new website!! me LIKEY!

    I like how Gorillabuns thinks.

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  25. Hooray!!!! Happy launch day!

    My husband told me last night that your book arrived from Amazon...which is totally exciting, except that it's in Cambridge and I'm in NYC. But once I get home, that first day is official Jess Riley Day...I'm not even answering the phone until I turn the last page :)

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  26. Congratulations! I read about your book on two blogs (Gail's and Joanne Rendell's). It's in my Amazon cart now, but can I send my toddler to the local B & N anyway? He does so love his tantrums!

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  27. Anonymous9:23 AM

    Congratulations, Jess!!!!! I pre-ordered several and am waiting for them to arrive. MAJOR congrats on the Target Breakout!! That's huge and fabulous and Driving Sideways deserves every bit of it!

    Rock on, Jess, can't wait for the next one!

    Love,
    Kristy

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  28. Love the new look! Very fresh and summary. :)

    I had to stop by and tell you that we had your summer salad again last night, and my 12 year old daughter, Maya, said, "Mama, I LOVE this salad. Will you make it again tomorrow?" I was like, uh, no, not tomorrow...but soonish, ok? She was OK with that. So it's a hit!

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  29. Congrats about your book! I'm looking forward to helping you promote. As one of your scouts, I went looking for it today so I could read it. Guess what. The kind folks over at the Barnes and Noble told me that they "don't stock it but could order it." They then said, "Oh well, this ONE store has it." Like it was the only one or something. This is wrong! And it was all I could do not to berate their entire existence in front of all these prissy ladies buying armloads of books to read in all their frilly lives of luxury that were, thanks to B&N, not your book.

    Needless to say, they are ordering it for me.

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  30. Wow! Look what you've done with the place. Pretty swanky. I thought I stopped in the wrong blog for a minute there. Nice!

    OK, I'm reading the book and I like it so much that I read it when I'm on the eliptical at the gym and I try and find time to read more. In fact, I have to go do that now. Bye.

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  31. Congrats! Looks like you have written a great book. No easy task as I well know. Good luck with it.

    Here from W Karen.

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  32. Huge congratulations--what great blurbs! I am so checking it out!

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  33. Anonymous8:45 PM

    Congrats, Jess! I saw the news on another blog, and raced over to visit. Hope your novel takes off like a fighter jet! :)

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  34. Hi - I am here to say I have never laughed so much as reading your blog when I should really be continuing with my making my textile assessment piece - browsing www is a great way to procrastinate. Anyway having read the info about your book - I thought I'd look at Amazon uk as that's where I am and wondered if you would like to know that they think you have a dual personality!! The book is listed as Driving Sideways (Paperback)
    by Jessica Riley (Author), Jess Riley (Author).
    Or are you one of twins!! :-) I have ordered my copy and can't wait to read it! Hope it does really well for you. Anna

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  35. Hey Jess, HOW EXCITING!!! I can't wait to read your book and tell everyone I know that I was reading your blog loooong before you were on Oprah :) Good luck!!!

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  36. Jess, I've missed all the excitement! CONGRATULATIONS AND HUGS TO YOU! I'll have five glasses of wine tonight instead of two.

    Have you ever dropped out of sight in the blogworld? I did for a while. Life rules, you know.

    Now I'm off to get my own copy of Driving Sideways and you'll hear about it when I have it! K?

    Cheers to you, an amazing woman.

    Mary

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