I don’t think this is an official national holiday yet — we had not heard back from Congress at press time — but it’s still a great day: “The Elephant in the Room” is out in paperback today.
It’s available online and in bookstores all across this great land of ours … if you love indie bookstores, as we do, buy a copy (or several!) there.
Also, if you’re near these cities, come see me on my book tour! More details and updates here.
I’m thrilled to go back out on the road and talk to people about the book. I’m also thrilled at the idea of new readers picking it up and giving it a read. To sum up: It’s all pretty thrilling. I might have mentioned that.
Thanks, as always, for your support and encouragement along the way. I’m forever grateful.
I gave a book talk Wednesday afternoon to a great group of folks at Amity Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte. During the Q&A, a woman talked about how she’d tried to lose weight but never could build any momentum to keep going. “How do you fight inertia?” she said.
I have a whole chapter about inertia in my book. It’s the hardest force to fight for most of us who are trying to change. Our bad habits are like gravity, pulling us back to the ground when we try to break free. I don’t have any easy answers. But I did tell the woman about the Seinfeld chain.
The story goes that a young comic once asked Jerry Seinfeld for advice on how to get better. Seinfeld said the key was writing jokes every day. He had come up with a simple system: He got a calendar, and every day he wrote, he put a big X through that day on the calendar. Once he strung together a few X’s, he had a chain. And then the goal every day was not to break the chain.
Seinfeld has kept the chain going since 1975.
There’s a documentary called “Jerry Before Seinfeld” that has a brilliant illustration of this. Seinfeld is sitting cross-legged in the middle of a street, surrounded by the pages of jokes he’s written for the past 40 years (he writes on a legal pad). The pages fill the whole block.
Three years ago, I gave up fast food for Lent. Before that I had been eating fast food nearly every day, sometimes two or three times a day, for 35 years. The first day I gave it up, I printed out a little one-page calendar and crossed off the date. That was a tough day. I really wanted some Wendy’s. Then I crossed off the next day. I wanted some McDonald’s. Then the third day and the fourth and the fifth. And with every passing day, I craved fast food a little less, and I wanted to keep the chain going a little more.
As of this morning, if I’ve done my math right, the chain is 1,296 days long.
I don’t even cross it off every day anymore — sometimes I’ll forget and have to go back and fill in a couple of weeks. But the chain is always there, in a slot on my desk where I can see it. It’s always in the back of my mind.
I’m healthier and happier and have more money in my pocket because of that chain. The brilliance of it is that it gave me a good habit to replace a bad one. And it was a painless way to build the inertia I needed.
It also couldn’t be cheaper. Find a calendar or print one out. Figure out something you want to do (or not do) every day. Start crossing out those boxes. Follow the chain and see where it takes you.
On the left: All the working drafts of "The Elephant in the Room." On the right: the finished product.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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!
