Journal

Friday, March 15, 2002
Just received my first Bloomsbury bound proof copy of Coraline ( a very stark black and white thing looking like an old Penguin paperback).

It says something about, well, the fall-out from the publication history of American Gods, that my immediate first reaction was to nip to ebay and see if there were any up for sale yet. (There weren't. Only Five Coraline Corset advets from the 1920s, and a Russian Coraline tea set.)

You know, I don't really mind people selling proof copies on e-bay. What I mind is them selling unread, mint condition proofs. The whole point of the proofs is for people -- journalists, booksellers, publishers reps -- to get to read the book before anybody else. If they simply sell the proof unread -- well, they make money, and somebody gets to be fairly happy because they've read a book before anyone else.

On the "abridged Coraline" being advertised over at Amazon.com, I dropped a note to Harper Collins, who pointed out that Amazon also have the price and the ISBN wrong. Sigh. I'm really hoping that the various Amazons can sort out all the orders they've taken for versions of Coraline that don't exist (like the Amazon.co.uk Paperback Coraline, not to mention the mysterious "Cordelia") that people have ordered over the last 6 months.

Saw the redesign of the whole neilgaiman.com site today. Visually, and, I hope, in terms of the way the stuff on here is organised, it's going to be amazing. Truly scrumptious, as they said on that Dick van Dyke movie.

And I continue to write these blogger entries. And Blogger Pro continues not to post them. Hope springs eternal. Oh well. Happy ides of March. Happy march of ideas.