It’s only three weeks until Best Served Cold comes out in the UK. Can you feel the excitement? Can you? To celebrate the occasion, I will be doing an exhaustive tour of the UK, where you will be able to get lovely new beautiful hardbacks of Best Served Cold signed, and perhaps even lined and dated, in my flowing, fantasy-esque script. Other books too, maybe. Details are still being confirmed, but I thought I’d let you know what we do know so you can cancel your holidays/reschedule weddings or funerals/sell your children in order to attend one if not more of these once in a lifetime literary sensations:
Thursday 4th June, 7pm, Manchester
Talk and signing at Waterstones,
91 Deansgate,
Manchester M3 2BW
Tel: 0161 837 3000
Ah, my old hunting grounds in Manchester, where I attended University. Well, when I say attended, obivously I mean sat for three years in an array of freezing/filthy student houses playing Street Fighter II for 3 years. Happy days. When I think of my college buddies, Ryu, Guile and Blanka, it brings a tear to my eye. We used to call ourselves the four amigos. Ha ha ha. The stuff we got up to. Dragon punching, and Sonic Booming, and all that. Great times, man, great times. Haven’t been back for a long while, so I’m quite looking forward to this one. There’ll certainly be a reading, a Q&A;, and some signing, plus maybe a bit of chat about the new book, we shall see…
Friday 5th June, evening, time TBA, London
An event of some kind at Forbidden Planet,
179 Shaftesbury Avenue,
London WC2H 8JR
Tel: 020 7420 3666
Thence to London, where I’ll be doing something at Forbidden Planet on Shaftsbury avenue. The signing for Last Argument of Kings there was actually really well attended, so this year we’re hoping to do something more. Possibly some kind of talk. Possibly some kind of Q&A.; Possibly some kind of informal circulation, like that Barrack Obama doing town halls, only without the handsomeness, charisma, eloquence, power, appreciation, or sense of history obviously. So not like Barrack Obama at all. Except for the standing and talking.
Saturday 6th June, 1pm, Bath
Signing at Waterstones,
4-5 Milsom Street,
Bath BA1 1DA
Tel: 01225 448 515
And finally Bath, which will, by this point, be my manor, so to speak, since we’re packing up and leaving London on the 21st of May. Farewell big smoke, hello Georgian splendor. Well, you know, Georgian splendor partially ruined by rubbish, compromised, Prince Charles-esque bullshit modern development with no architectural merit. Don’t get me started. Oh, you didn’t? Sorry. Anyway, town planning will be neither here nor there at the Bath Waterstones (which is a fine Waterstones) on Saturday the 6th. Fantasy fans of southwest Britain, I expect to see you there…
Other dates, plus the details of the Forbidden Planet event, will no doubt be announced in due course.
EDIT: The FP event will consist of a reading and Q&A;, followed by signing of books. Lack of seating prevents anything more elaborate…
33 comments so far
Not very ‘exhaustive’ yet, 3 dates =P
How many you aiming for?
And grats on the ‘next step’ in authorism. Something at Forbidden Planet sounds terribly exciting =D
Your promotion of the forbidden planet signing sounds like “Cloverfield” in terms of vague hype. I was going to ask you to draw a map on the inside cover but there seems to be one on the front.
Glad to see the exhaustive UK tour so far consists of three cities in England. You should try a follow up North American tour in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec.
Erik, Enjai
I’m covering the country from top to bottom. No one in the entire British Isles will be more than 900 miles from one of these mouth watering events. Meet me half way, people. Only the entirety of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the North East, the Midlands, various islands and numerous other areas are excluded. And you never know, there may be more dates forthcoming…
Look on the upside, what did you get last year? One signing in London. By comparison this is a road trip the scope and complexity of which dwarfs Iron Maiden’s late 80s Somewhere in Time extravaganza.
Meet you half way? But Joe, thats in the middle of the North Sea! Or is ‘Bath’ the name of your supersecret Submarinebase Lair?
Good luck anywhos =)
CHOICES, CHOICES. I already have Best Served Cold pre-ordered at a discount price, and I bet you're going to extort the full £13 from me. On the other hand … Bath! It's ten minutes up the road! I could make a minor financial sacrifice for the cause.
Marking my calendar. <3
Joe,
Does this mean we can expect you to buy your own plane for the next book tour ….. *insert witty name for said plane here*
Are you intending on coming to Milton Keynes Joe?
I know its on the border to hell and we have more teen mums than people with a brain, but it would be pretty awesome to have you up here.
I’m coming to London on the 23th of May and I will be staying for five days. You don’t happen to do any signings in that particular period of time, do you?
Excellent stuff. I was one of the people who kept asking about a Best Served Cold UK tour and here it is. Hopefully I’ll be able to make the Manchester date to hear more about the new book.
sirayn,
Your copy may have appeared through the post by then. I daresay no one would go mad with rage if you brought it to be signed. Who knows, you might even buy something else while you were there?
jason,
I doubt I’ll be buying my own plane quite yet. Perhaps my own train, like her majesty.
matthew,
We may make a stop between london and manchester. Not absolutely sure where yet, or even if. I will keep all posted.
daft,
I’ll just have moved down to Bath that week, unfortunately, and will be trying to sort out the deadly pre-war wiring in the new house.
Steve,
Not only hear about the new book, but BUY it.
What?! Only one London event? That’s ridiculous.
I’ll see you in Manchester Joe,
hope you sign my book , course when i say ‘sign’ i mean spank, and when i say book, i mean ‘bottom’. fingers crossed for both!
So, you’re going to Bath eh?
Ok, you bring the loofah and I’ll bring the soap, I might be able to get to this one, we shall see 🙂
Hmmm -what? If I can manage to wend my way from Billericay to London I’m sure people can manage Milton Keynes to London if they really want to. Or perhaps they don’t really want to.
You know what would be really awesome for the FP signing? Food. And booze. See you there.
Shiny. I may just make the FP signing. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid…
Jared,
Why so ridiculous? Go to the one…
Badger,
There’s nothing I like more than to “sign” a pert “book”.
Bob L,
No fragrant oils?
Isis,
Folk these days, they want everything on their doorstep.
Susanne,
I am always afraid.
We have a Forbidden Planet in Leicester too y’know, it’s cute, you should come and see it. 🙂
Oh well Joe, let me know where you intend to park your hat – if its not close enough to Milton Keynes, I may have to take action to ensure you make your way over here.
Would you take my wife as a bribe? She cleans like a demon and cooks like a champ…
Come to Cambridge – we have a Forbidden Planet too, plus a Waterstones and a Borders. Oh, and a ton of students and nerdy software developers, so if you’re looking for a guaranteed audience for fantasy novels, look no further…
No Glasgow dates yet? You can’t really call it a UK tour if you’re only touring Engerland.
Come on Joe, Scotland needs the wit and charm of an international best selling author. I can promise you safe passage across Hadrian’s Wall.
Joe, if you look on a map ( which you may or may not have drawn), and look to say, the west , you will see an island called Ireland. Are you aware that Mssrs Ryanair and Co. offer bargain basement seats to said island from a number of inconveniently located airports throughout the UK? Any chance of you going to one, and say, getting on said plane to aforementioned island?
I mean, what does Goteborg have that we don’t, aprt from blondes and better cheekbones?
So how come the Waterstone’s web site Events section doesn’t mention anything about a visit from your good self to the store in Bath? Very tardy on their part, I think you will agree.
Hey Joe,
Why don’t you come to Dublin this Sunday for a book signing. I’ll be there. I’m flying in from Los Angeles. I’ll even bring a book. What do you say? Is it a date?
Unfortunately I’m not arriving in the UK until July 20th. 🙁
If you could stretch your tour to the Isle of Man you’d be in the midst of TT week and have an audience of 30,000 sweaty-arsed bikers (from Germany, Netherlands, etc) who’d line up along the Prom for a signed copy of a book with a leather-clad femme fatale on the cover!
Good luck on the tour, Joe! And I’m soooo looking forward to the dish Best Served Cold.
Any chance you’ll be coming to the US?
Personally I think it would only have been polite of you to come to my city and sign my copy of Best Served Cold on Saturday 6th as that is my birthday, but no, you have to go to Jane Austen land instead. They may ask you to wear stays.. whatever they are.
Are there limited numbers for the reading and Q&A; session? FP isn't very roomy and they limited folk for the Patrick Rothfuss reading yesterday.
Leiali,
You’re assuming I don’t already wear stays.
Anon,
I hadn’t heard anything about limited numbers, but I guess the size of the place may naturally limit it…
As for those many of you whose back parlours I will not be visiting I can only apologise. It can cost quite a lot to do an extensive tour and turnouts, even for well established authors, can be low. If things go well with these dates, next time round we may do more.
I was the anon by accident who was wondering about the numbers.
The fact that they haven’t mentioned anything to you probably means there must be a secret area hidden away in the store somewhere for these clandestine meetings at forbidden planet. It looks like the Patrick Rothfuss visit was fairly last minute so they maybe weren’t able to clear space.
I usually end up overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fantasy on the shelves there while waiting in the queue. There’s a lot to be said for non-generic fantasy covers. I also managed to plug the first law and the signing as two people behind me said they had heard about “some abercrombie guy”. Maybe the tube adverts worked afterall?
"Are there limited numbers for the reading and Q&A; session? FP isn't very roomy and they limited folk for the Patrick Rothfuss reading yesterday."
I was there and I'm pretty certain they didn't limit the numbers at the signing itself (except when they had to end the signing at 7.30). They DID limit the numbers at the Q&A; afterwards, but only because it was in a club and the back room could only hold 50 people for space/insurance/health and safety purposes.
Alas, I’m away that weekend, applying sunshine to my pale and limp body. Still, I got my fix at klatsch…
That sounds bad…
Next time, good luck with the move.
Den