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News The Elephant in the Room

We’re here.

Seven years ago, I first spoke to my agent about writing a book on my life as a fat man.

Four years ago — after three years of being afraid to write it — I signed a contract.

Three years ago, a first draft.

A year and a half ago, a second draft.

A year ago, a version we were all happy with.

(On the left in the photo above is all the working drafts stacked together.)

A few months ago, advance copies in my hands.

A couple of weeks ago, the first hardbacks arrived.

And finally, today, “The Elephant in the Room” lands out in the world.

So many people have been so kind in the days leading up to publication, as excerpts have come out and I’ve done a bunch of interviews about the book. (If you want to catch up on the coverage, we’ve gathered it here.)

I’m also doing a book tour, mostly through the Carolinas but also a couple of other places. We start tonight at Park Road Books in Charlotte. Here’s the current list of dates. If you can come out, I’d love to see you.

Beyond that, I have three favors to ask.

  1. If you’re planning on buying the book, it would be great if you did it this week. Bookstores count all sales through Saturday as part of the first week’s sales, and the first week is crucial for any book — it’s the best chance to get noticed, and often the best chance to make any best-seller lists. (All preorders also count toward first-week sales). My homepage has buttons where you can buy the book through your local independent store, on Amazon, or wherever else you choose. It’s available as a traditional book, an ebook and an audiobook.
  2. Please spread the word. If you spend time on social media, tweet or post on Facebook or whatever you normally do to let people know that the book is out. (We’re using #TheElephantInTheRoom as a hashtag, if you do hashtags.) But also just tell your friends, co-workers, and so on. Word of mouth is the best advertising there is.
  3. I want to see your photos — if you’ve bought the book, if you’re reading it in some exotic location (or just in your living room), if you see it out in the world somewhere. Send any photos to tomlinsonwrites@gmail.com. I’ll post some along the way.

Today is both a finish line (we published a book!) and the start of a new race (now we need people to read it!). Thank you for the incredible boost so far. This moment has been a long time coming — I know some of you have been hearing me talk about this book for so long that you might have figured it was just my imagination. Well, nope. It’s real. It’s here. And I’m thrilled for you to have a chance to read it.

— TT

Categories
The Elephant in the Room

A book update (and a question)

Guys: My book, “The Elephant In the Room” — which I think I’ve been telling you about for 45 years or so — is one step closer to publication. The good folks at Simon & Schuster have put up a page for it on their website. It’s also now available for preorder through Amazon and Barnes & Noble:

Amazon

B&N

Or you can order a copy through an independent bookstore — my favorite is Park Road Books here in Charlotte.

The book doesn’t come out until January, which is a long wait, but if you go ahead and buy it now, by the time it comes out you’ll have forgotten that you spent the money and it’ll feel like a free book. And if you buy two now, it’ll feel like TWO free books!

(Yes, I am going to be shilling the hell out of this thing.)

There’s been a lot going on with the book behind the scenes. We’ve been talking about covers, doing final edits, figuring out the size and the font and the million other little things that go into making a book. This is all new to me and there’s a lot about the process that’s fascinating, at least to a book nerd like me. Which leads to a question.

I’ve been thinking about starting up a weekly newsletter that would give you a glimpse at what it’s like to take this book from start to finish — as well as pulling together the podcasts I’ve been doing at WFAE, any writing I’ve done that week, and other interesting stuff I ran across.

Is that something y’all might be interested in?

If so, do me a favor: If you’d like to subscribe (I guess I should mention here that it’ll be free), send me an email with the subject line SIGN ME UP at tomlinsonwrites@gmail.com. I’ll put you on the list for when I get this thing started — I hope in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I hear preordered books make great gifts!

— TT

Categories
Writing

Elephant in the Room: The end of the beginning

 

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Some of you know that I’ve been working on a book for a while — it’s called “The Elephant in the Room,” and it’s a memoir about my life as a fat man in a growing America. Just after midnight last night, I wrote the final sentence and then typed -30-, which is old newspaper lingo for the end of a story. I emailed the draft to my agent. Most of my columns for the Charlotte Observer were about 600 words. One of the features I write for ESPN might run 4,000. This was 61,000 words. I hope a few of them are good.

This is just the end of the beginning. A few trusted readers are going to take a look and give me some thoughts. I’ll read those and make some changes. Then my book editor at Simon & Schuster will get ahold of it, and he’ll have more ideas. What we end up with will be different than what I turned in today. That’s how it works and how it ought to work. I don’t know when there will be a book for you to buy. But you can bet I’ll let you know through this blog, Twitter, Facebook, emails, town crier, etc.

There’s still a long way to go. But for now: I wrote a book! I think I’ll go sleep for a couple of days.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Book announcement

I’m too excited to give this a fancy buildup so I’ll just say it: I’m writing a book.

Here’s the announcement from the site Publishers Lunch:

publisherslunch

Yeah, I can’t really believe it either.

There are a lot of things I don’t know yet — we’re at the beginning of a long, long process. Apparently, now that the publisher likes the idea, they actually want me to write the damn thing. So it’ll be awhile before you get to hold a copy in your hands — although, if you’re reading this, I do expect you to not only hold a copy in your hands one day, but actually, you know, BUY it.

I’ve been thinking about this book for a long time, as I’ve tried to untangle not just my own struggle to get in shape, but the struggle of so many others. I’ve touched on it a few times, most recently in my piece for ESPN on Jared Lorenzen, but there’s a lot more to talk about. It’ll be hard. Trying to make yourself better in some way is always hard.

But I’m thrilled for the chance to tell this story, and to find out what it’s like to write a book — something I’ve always dreamed of. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going along and along. Thanks to everyone for the support all these years. And to all of you who asked “When are you going to write a book?” — finally, I have a decent answer.