The mail at my house tends to arrive in the late afternoon. Once I judged that the mailman would have had sufficient time to navigate the horrifying suburban wasteland in which I live, I opened the door...and stopped.

Even around here, it's not every day that a big blue biohazard bag hits my porch. I'm just saying.

I picked up the bag, checking the tags in the vague hope that it had been mis-delivered to my house, and was actually intended for the mad scientist down the way. Nope; there was my name and address, along with the ominous routing tag for Sweden. Yes, Sweden, land of chocolates and, quite possibly, human organs and anthrax. I mean, why else would it have been secured with two heavy plastic zip-ties?

Lacking anything better to do with the bag, I took it inside, cleared the cutting board, and put it down. Then, after a quick check of my time zone-based options, I called Cat. "I have a big international biohazard shipping bag in my kitchen," I informed her, without preamble.

"What?" She was laughing. This is because humor is the best defense against me sometimes.

"Big international biohazard bag. I need you to call the CDC if I start screaming and drop the phone."

"Um...okay."

It took several minutes with the industrial-grade scissors to work my way into the bag, which kept producing more and more ominous routing stickers as I ripped my way inside. Finally, I ripped away the last layer, and shrieked happily.

Cat did not hang up and call the CDC. All those of you not currently trapped in the blasted quarantine zone that used to be California, you can thank her.

"It's the British edition of Feed!" I told her exultantly.

"Oh, good."

I have the UK copies of Feed! They're so pretty! They're only subtly different from the American edition—redder blood, because presumably the Rising is still fresher in England's memory; the word "bloggers" is actually on the back cover; no number "one" on the spine; a quote from Publishers Weekly on the front—but having them fills me with deep, atavistic satisfaction. This is the first British edition of one of my books. I am PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, yo. The cast of Doctor Who could wander into a Waterstone's and just pick up one of my books, without worrying about the import sticker. I'm global. And stuff.

This is even better than illegal human organ trafficking. I'm just saying.

I am absolutely delighted to announce the cover release for Nebelbann, the German edition of A Local Habitation. ("Nebelbann" means, roughly, "mist-spell" or "mist-ban." It's a really spiffy compound word, and I'm thrilled.) This is being released by Egmont, my German publisher, and the cover design was done by the artist who designed the cover of Winterfluch.

Behold the pretty:



It's so different from my US covers, and so pretty, that I honestly couldn't be happier. I'm really happy.

What do you think?

I spend a lot of time trying to explain literary rights to my mother, who is trying very gamely to learn all the weirdness of the world of publishing. It probably doesn't help that my understanding in many arenas remains fuzzy, so my explanations involve a lot of waving my hands and going "blah blah blah fishcakes." She takes this with reasonably good grace. I have a good mom.

Right now, I keep trying to explain foreign rights sales. Because you see, right now—during the conveniently timed volcanic ash cloud, oops—the London Book Fair is going on. This is one of the biggest foreign rights sales events in the world. If I want Toby in the United Kingdom and the Masons in Japan, this is very likely where it's going to happen. I am thus, I think understandably, a little twitchy about foreign rights at the moment.

I've had awesome luck with foreign rights, in part because I have an awesome foreign rights agent, who works very hard to get my stuff out there. Toby has been sold in Germany and Russia; the Newsflesh trilogy has been sold in Germany. I'd really like a UK edition of the Toby books, and a French edition of both, but there's no counting on it; I need to sit back and wait to see how things settle out. But oh, how I wants it, my precious. I wants it bad. There's the artistic reason ("I just want more people to be able to enjoy Toby's adventures!"), and then there's the capitalist reason ("I really, really want to go full-time before I catch fire from lack of sleep").

My actual reasons are somewhere in the middle. I genuinely do want my books to be accessible to the entire world...and I really, really want to get up every morning, write for a while, take a walk, write for a while longer, and not have a commute further than bed-to-chair. Foreign sales aren't likely to change the world completely, but as many authors of my acquaintance can tell you, good worldwide positioning can make a huge difference in your end-of-year bottom line. Maybe even a full-time writer (or part-time day job) level of difference.

And this is why I'm crazy this week.

In January of 2010, Egmont Lyx in Germany will be releasing the German-language edition of Rosemary and Rue, retitled Winterfluch ("Winter's Curse"). German-language editions of A Local Habitation and An Artificial Night will follow (titles to be announced). You can view the Amazon.de page here, and request a copy for yourself. Assuming you speak German. Or are in Germany.

As of today, the cover of Winterfluch is finally public, and I am so very excited. Would you like to be excited? It's fun to be excited.

( Click here for the glory and excitement of my German cover art.Collapse )