Wanderers News, When Wanderers Also Sort of IS The News?

The question is, is it glib to announce book news now? Is it gauche or otherwise in bad taste? What if that book is a book that… sometimes eerily mirrors the reality in which we’re living? Does that make it better, worse, or just weirder?

I have no idea! As I said yesterday on Twitter, this all feels like a slow-motion 9/11. Like we’re watching the planes hit, frame by frame, stretched out, instead of all at one time. But it’s also the aftermath of it, too, as if time itself has run together like wet paint.

Still. All I know is this: I’m a writer and I write books and this is what I do, and in the absence of much else, I’m gonna keep on writing books and editing books and talking about the books I have out in the world. Because otherwise I’ll just panic-eat cookies all day.

So, with that said, some book-ish news —

First, the slightly bad news: my next novel, The Book of Accidents, won’t be out this summer, as predicted. We talked about moving it to the fall, but given what is potentially to come in November, we felt it better to just… get out of the way of that trolley problem now, and move the book into 2021. I believe the expected publication date on that book is now July, 2021.

That said, the Wall Street Journal talks about how readers are, in the midst of COVID19, eagerly consuming pandemic fiction — and Wanderers gets a (fairly spoilery!) shout-out.

And I offered some brief thoughts at The Portalist about what it is to find hope in end-of-the-world stories. You can also find Mike Chen there, who would’ve been with me at the Tucson Book Fest. And here I remind you that with a lot of book events being canceled (see below for more about that), it’s a nice time to support indie bookstores and authors. Certainly I don’t mean to suggest it is your responsibility, as the difficulties going forward are likely to impact us all, but creative folks and the marketplaces for their work are often closer to the razor’s edge. The good news is, books make for an excellent dry good to stock up on for all your doomsday prepping needs! Bookshop.org (in beta) and indiebound.org are good places to start, but also I remind you that many, many indie bookstores will also sell and ship direct. Also note that another alternative (as with restaurants) is buying gift certificates from local stores to give flagging income a little goose.

(*honk*)

ANYWAY.

Finally, I can also announce that Wanderers is coming out in paperback!

If you want a little publishing industry inside baseball —

Because the book has done so well in its run so far (seriously, thank you, everyone), the initial paperback plan was to release it one year after hardcover, in July. And then I was going to maybe round that out with some bookstore and con events. But at this point, since all of that is suddenly fraught, Del Rey wisely decided to bump the paperback release sooner.

In the UK, it’ll be out on May 14th.

And in the US, it’ll be out May 19th.

Bonus: in the US it’s getting a revised cover:

* * *

WANDERERS: A Novel, out now.

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. An astonishing tapestry of humanity that Harlan Coben calls “a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”

A sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America. The real danger may not be the epidemic, but the fear of it. With society collapsing—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers and the shepherds who guide them depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Print: Indiebound | B&N | BAM | Amazon

eBook: Amazon | Apple Books | B&N | Kobo | Google Play | BAM

Audio: Audible | Libro.FM