Drum roll please…

Hurrah! So nice to be able to talk about these things at last. The website www.glassbooks.co.uk is now up and running, so rush along to have a peek at what we’ve all been working on over here. As you eagle-eyed bloggers have noticed, the Stropping Station timetable comes from The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, one of our major titles for next year. But you could own it now! (Or in a few weeks, at least.) Although I am still baffled as to where that timetable came from. A nice touch, whoever put it on my desk.

The subscription includes the whole book in ten instalments, with one instalment delivered to your door each week – you can either hungrily grab each book as it falls through the letterbox, feverishly unwrapping and devouring to immediately discuss it with your friends, or stopper your ears with cotton wool and save the whole clump for a huge binge over Christmas – who needs relatives when you have another world to visit?

VB

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Comments

[slightly disappointed]

Hmm. This sounded initially interesting, but a few seconds of googling reveal that this book has in fact already been published in America in its entirety, to extremely mixed reviews, and at a cheaper price than you're charging for the 10 installments. This is the problem with 'the digital age'!

Further googling confirms that the author is an academic and playwright who lives and works in New York rather than 'the world's sole remaining practitioner of mesmerism'.

Surely this all detracts slightly from the whole Dickensian excitement of the thing?

[Michael]

Love the concept. Have signed up.

Hate to be a pedant, but the excerpts from the book appear to have a few minor typos - thought you should know.

[Miles]

Sounds great. Love the idea of getting an instalment through my letterbox each week.
I’ve signed up too.

[Kathryn]

I'm inclined to agree with the first comment - I'd have thought the point about serialisation is that you can't already get hold of the entire book? especially for less money! And the invention of a fake 'mystery' surrounding the author just sounds too much like post-Da Vinci Code desperation.

Sorry - I love the idea in principle but it needs to be genuinely new and exclusive.

[Dan]

My my. When did fiction readers become so serious?!
I think it's a great idea. I've not heard of a book being sold in this way before, and any mystery surely just adds to the fun?
Looking forward to getting my first chapter...

[Jasper]

i'm inclined to agree with the last post.

Am I being rather naive, or have all the virtual sleuths out there who've discovered that dreameaters has been already been published in the US missing the point?

A few of my friends and i have subscribed because it just seems like quite a fun way of reading a book together. and to be honest i quite like the fact that its not beem sold in such a po-faced way as we're used to.

surely all fiction is about suspension of disbelief...

[Eoin Purcell]

I think the disappointment stems from the execution not the idea. I think nearly everyone likes the concept but thinks the way/cost of the product is unwarranted.
As for the title in question having seen it in the US when on holidays I suspected that it was the subject of all the secrecy and do think it well suited to this type of project!
Eoin

[ed]

I too am a little thrown but not by the cost, which to be honest is £2.50 a week (my coffee in the morning costs £2.35) but by the sense that Penguin are trying to fleece people? It's an up front subscription that presumably costs money to make and deliver. If you really want a cheaper version and aren't interested in the experience then just wait till Jan, no?

[Manumission]

Great idea. I am the owner of a small press and I can only applaud all these new ideas!