Hello everyone! Today is the day the book comes out, I am in New York about to do all kinds of things, so I won’t be around to coddle you. Make your own breakfast. There’s milk in the fridge. Figure it out.
Are you coming to the launch tonight, East Coasters? Come meet me and my mom and my sister! The rest of you please enjoy this story about how I swallowed a bug during an interview with the Guardian.
It was awful. (The bug, not the interview)
Well insects are the new happenin’ protein.
I am still linking to the Guardian interview tomorrow in the roundup because That’s So Mallory.
Aaaah Book Day! I’ve had this on pre-order for like three months y’all.
No, we musn’t dwell. Not on Book Day.
*the dulcet tones of Video Killed the Radio Star*
Bookbookbookbookbookbook Amazon is telling me it hasn’t shipped to me yet. Expected arrival date, next Thursday. *tries desperately to be patient*
Super excited for the launch tonight. I just hope Amazon actually delivers the book to me at work like it said.
Some A+ man-fretting going on in the comments section of this interview.
And yet many of them go out of their way to say that Mallory is great, it’s just the meeeeean headline that they’re objecting to! Mallory is undeniable; even the haters cannot hate her.
I mean I’m not surprised, but still confused by the idea that the headline is mean. Like, what?
Also by the idea that you can think Mallory is great, and somehow not recognize that headline as implicitly underpinning 90% of everything she says/does.
lol it’s a literally verbatim quote from me, how can they object
But you said you don’t NEED THEM!! They need to be needed!!
I laughed really really hard at “The headline is completely misleading. It suggests that this young lady is a man-hating troll. Reading on though, she is anything but.”
She says right in the interview that she has the heart of a troll, which makes this even more amusing, at least to me.
I would like to submit my request to be considered, henceforth, a man-hating troll. No pink hair, either. Warts and clubs and bridges, that’s me.
I particularly enjoyed the guy who said that calling Mallory a feminist was part of the Guardian’s “clomping” political agenda, and that it ruined everything. LOLing 4evah.
I preordered this months ago but then I got my credit card number stolen and forgot to change the payment on the book. Yesterday, Amazon revoked my sale and even though I scrambled to update the payment info it’s not going to arrive until Thursday! Woe is me! My life is so hard! I only have about 14 million other books to read, but no other book can be satisfying when it’s not the book you want! So I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls all day. It could be worse.
Just a friendly reminder to not read the comment section, except for the thread started by MsBirch, who is GREAT.
Guardian comments are always completely fretful. There are always rationalists, people demanding peer-reviewed studies for any proposition, lefties, lefty-baiters from further left…
And you cannot sort by popularity, even on the beta pages.
Sigh
I fell into a black hole of Guardian comments yesterday and it was amazing/frustrating. From a distance they don’t look so bad and then you actually read them. I just couldn’t stop because every time it looked like the next person might have some sense…and no.
This article was one of the ones I got sucked into. Splendid entertainment for a while, but AT WHAT COST?
Enjoy all the money from me, because I bought your book twice! I pre-ordered the physical book last week, forgetting that I pre-ordered it for my Kindle back in April. Whoops! Hopefully the one extra copy makes a difference in the way I always hope my one vote makes a difference.
Don’t need…? What? I DEMAND TO BE REASSURED OF MY VALUE!
Wessexboy writes
“Toast is brilliant. The spoof chapter titles for various genres (Victorian literature, Russian classics, etc) are original, clever and hilarious.
So why does the Guardian have to come clumping along with some witless political agenda and try to spoil it all? So what if It’s written by women and attracts a large female following? Toast is no more “feminist” than the Daily Mash or News Thump. It’s just quirkier and, on its day, funnier.
Isn’t that enough for you?”
Oh honey. Sweetest pea.
‘I found her tweets very amusing and have nothing against this women by the way! Just don’t like the trend in this paper to go for cynical (playful?) anti men headlines.”
Yes, clearly you are a big fan of Mallory’s.
“I am a stranger to the internet, and your ways are mysterious to me.”
Oh my goodness! This is a time when I feel that I cannot lol hard enough.
HAS
HE
READ
ME
I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU
Now I kind of want to read some books about caves… what’s your favorite book about caves, Mallory?
BLIND DESCENT
I am delighted by all the poor delicate men in the comments section of the Guardian interview who are OUTRAGED by the idea that a website for and about women doesn’t need them (but loves them when they show up and behave themselves).
I think I’m more offended by the commenter who tries to defend Mallory as if she clearly didn’t mean to say that the Toast doesn’t need men. “It’s not her fault that she was asked loaded questions such as what women writers she would recommend and what advice she has for women writers”. I mean, imagine! Asking a literature-loving female author who runs a feminist website questions about other women who write! Doesn’t the interviewer know that all women want to talk about is what clothes they’re wearing and which fictional characters they have crushes on? Poor Mallory, having to deal with such loaded questions.
That commenter! She describes Our Beloved Mallory as “modest,” which is just pure insult.
Maybe he can read her aura. Having a “slightly unbalanced, underactive throat chakra; you may have limited emotional and verbal expression and difficulty communicating your emotions.” might read as modest to amateur aura readers.
http://the-toast.net/2014/07/29/guess-editors-aur…
This is the best one: “Toast is no more “feminist” than the Daily Mash or News Thump. It’s just quirkier and, on its day, funnier.”
Mallory and Nicole, did you know that your site is not feminist?
Will be dispatched in one to three months, says UK Amazon.
Oh, that sucks! Is it possible they’re doing a slightly different edition? I don’t why they would, but my girlfriend works in publishing and has mentioned “UK rights” in passing as something distinct from other kinds of foreign rights.
WAIT spoke too soon. UK ebook def happening, will be available sooner than physical book.
HURRAH
How long does a search and replace for color/colour take?
maybe we can order it off US amazon.com quicker? tho shipping might be expensive. hmmm
Yeah–there is a separate UK edition coming out later. But maybe you can collect all of the editions for when they become collectors items. Which they surely will!
I’m hoping that when the Uk edition actually appears there will be a kindle version too – ATM it says ‘tell the publisher you want a kindle one’.
I would think so, but it’s a different publisher from the US edition (original flavor, best edition, bias showing) so it’s up to them. It’s Corsair/Little, Brown UK. Maybe check their other titles to see whether they usually do ebooks? But again, I would think so.
Do you have a Kindle, and can I lend you a US Kindle book? I will happy lend you my Kindle copy (which I forgot I ordered, and the book-book is coming today so I don’t need it right now) if I am able to!
That is a lovely, lovely offer, thankyou! I don’t think you can though – AFAIK you can only send your stuff to devices that are registered to your own amazon account, and they can’t be registered to two.
Thankyou though!
If the book is enabled for lending, you can lend to someone else for a period of time (two weeks i think) and i disables it on your device for that time. Not all books are ‘enabled’ to have this feature though.
I know, I’m so sad :(. Although a few weeks ago I’m sure the Amazon page said something about mid 2015 so I’m happy for anything closer!
It does look like the ‘used and new’ section on the UK site has a lot of US booksellers with the book ready to ship, so I’m considering that option; even if it takes a few weeks, I’ll just be happy to get it before Christmas!
This is something I should probably know, but–do authors get the same percentage of Kindle purchases vs. hardcopy purchases? I’m going to purchase the book tonight one way or the other, but I want to get the version that gives Mallory the most money.
I don’t know! Go nuts, do whatever!
Thanks! I will go back to basing my decision off whether or not I want an excuse to go to Barnes and Noble tonight.
Have just bought the Kindle version and placed an order for the hardcover, just to be on the safe side.
yeah just saw that too and made a similar face. 1-3 months?! I CANNOT WAIT THAT LONG
Had a mildly annoying day yesterday at work, so I really enjoyed this,
“But they’re there, which is delightful because they’re very well-behaved and polite.”
I am happy to be considered both polite and well-behaved!
I am so very very sad that I won’t be in town for the launch tonight. Have fun, everyone!
My husband and I are coming to see you tonight, so excited!
Ordered in company with Karen Solie’s Pigeon and Saeed Jones’ Prelude to Bruise and also that Pen and Ink tattoo book and that’s the end of the giftcard.
(This is a response to celery, btw. Get your shit together, Intense Debate!)
I obviously am not Mallory’s publisher (OR AM I) and I don’t know the specifics of her contract, but authors generally do better on hard copy sales than on ebook sales. There’s a breakdown here: https://www.authorsguild.org/authorship/e-book-ro…
Excellent information! Thank you!
Dang, three appearances in the comment stream. IntenseDebate is having a bad month.
Literally got the call from my friendly indie booksellers that this had come in! (Porter Square Books in Cambridge, they are lovely, everyone in the area should shop there.) Now I know what I’m doing with my evening.
I was planning on walking by there tonight to see about a copy!
Soooo I was going to do the thing I normally do where I get real shy and don’t go to NY Toast events, BUT it turns out I’m locked out of my apartment and I’m taking it as a sign! I will be there and ready to finally meet some Toasties. I will probably be there stupid early and end up sitting around knitting so come say hiiiii.
Mallory I think I’m sitting next to your mom?!?
You’re adorable and if I lived on the east coast, I would sit in the corner, stupid early, and knit with you.
Hurrah, just in time for my birthday! (Except people are saying upthread that Amazon UK is estimating a delivery time of several months, so perhaps not.)
Okay, screw it — this was supposed to be in reply to Mallory's suggestion of Blind Descent. 🙁
I celebrated Book Day by stopping by a bookstore and forcing a Man to hunt high and low for Mallory’s book for me. And when it turned out that they had misplaced their last copy, I shamed him until he violated company policy and suggested that a rival bookstore down the street would probably have it. And then I went to that bookstore and found another Man and made him hunt for the book as well, even though it was on display two feet from the cash register and I could have found it without assistance. (It still took him several minutes to find it.) Thus have I honored The Toast and the Great and Powerful Ortberg. Congratulations, Mallory!
I celebrated Book Day by stopping by a bookstore and forcing a Man to hunt high and low for Mallory's book for me. And when it turned out that they had misplaced their last copy, I shamed him until he violated company policy and suggested that a rival bookstore down the street would probably have it. And then I went to that bookstore and found another Man and made him hunt for the book as well, even though it was on display two feet from the cash register and I could have found it without assistance. (It still took him several minutes to find it.) Thus have I honored The Toast and the Great and Powerful Ortberg. Congratulations, Mallory!
So much to love about this interview. I especially appreciate the writing advice. It’s so easy with the culture of the internet being what it is (instant terrible feedback from all directions aaaaaaa) for me to think, “nope, this isn’t perfect, let’s just save it as a draft and come back to it never.”
The joy of Kindle pre-order. Sat down and read it one gulp. I was laughing so hard at Emily Dickinson I alarmed the cats.