Hi All:
Most of you on thread have known me for years and so I hope you don't think I'm spamming. This is a very exciting time for me and my client - I edited the book:
I received this email from Bill Pack, the author, yesterday. His book, The Bottom of the Sky, is coming out in June. When he wrote the email, the book was #796 in pre-sales. This morning it's at #284, which means it could sell out of first editions.
This is a fabulous book! Bill was an Executive Vice President with Citigroup Smith Barney (one of 25) and has an insider's view of the shenanigans that went on in the back offices of Wall Street.
Part of the summary:
The Bottom of the Sky, a tour-de-force family saga about an abused sister and brother and the scars, lingering guilt, and buried secrets that follow them throughout their lives. After one sibling abandons the other, the raw and tender story travels to Wall Street, which provides the novel with its fast-paced action and suspense. It is a gritty tale that deals head on with incest, prejudice, genius, madness, and Wall Street’s secret ways of making obscene profits with other people’s money.
The Bottom of the Sky is told through the lives of Levi Monroe and his sister, Lam. It is packed with memorable characters such as Crazy Marilyn, an oddball secretary with a heart of gold; and Gary Crawford, a powerful boss whose treachery and debauchery hide behind the chic façade of a Master of the Universe.
While the Wall Street story provides much of the novel’s pacing and suspense, the horror and shame of childhood abuse is always simmering as Levi and Lam survive in very different ways.
In the novel’s surprising climax, their lives merge in sacrifice and redemption.
Whether describing the dusty confines and eccentric customers of a Montana saloon or the ostentatious offices and fraudulent deals of corporate titans, Pack’s writing is pitch perfect. His precise knowledge of these disparate worlds comes from his own life.
Greed and betrayal power a tense plot involving the SEC, the FBI, and billions of dollars fleeced from every-day brokerage customers and shareholders, while isolation and envy
spawn horrific confrontations back home.
The Bottom of the Sky deals head-on with profound shame, promiscuity, madness, and violence even as it exposes the callous secrets shared by Wall Street and the silicon robber barons. This is the riveting thunderous tale of two disparate
worlds jointed by one desperate man, crafted in tandem to reflect the sacrifice one must pay for redemption, forgiveness and eventual solace.
One of the reviewers had this to say:
“I read this many-layered novel more slowly than any book in recent memory, partly to luxuriate in the rich use of language and sharp realization of character, and partly to delay my exit from the intricately wrought and curiously gripping worlds of Levi and Lam Monroe. Pack's skilled portrayal of the pain and secret thoughts of abused women is eerily perceptive, as though he knows things he could not know. A complete Wall Street outsider, I was fascinated by his accessible story of financial treachery--a story as timely as today's headlines. Most impressively, his luminous, tragic illustration of the questfor purpose, of heroism, of sacrifice reaches the Dickensesque. Pack's writing and his vision are nothing if not brilliant. I can't believe he's walking around like the rest of us.”
- Rosalie Maggio, bestselling author of more than 20 novels and nonfiction books
Check it out. You will really enjoy reading this book.
It doesn't come out until June, so if you want a first edition, now's the time to get your order in.
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From:
To:
BCC:
Sent: 3/14/2009 9:12:16 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: The Bottom of the Sky - an odd start
Hi all,
First things first, and then the odd part - some of you asked for us to put a link on The Bottom of the Sky's website so you could link your Facebook account into it. Well, I passed that to the web master. Now if you go to BottomoftheSky.com, on the home page there is an obvious link to a Facebook feature that allows you to link your Facebook site to the book site. Tah-daah! I also asked the publisher, Riverbend Publishing, to link it, but they've got other books to schlep as well and said they couldn't get to it for now.
Here's the odd start indicated in the subject of this email:
The book has been on sale on line for less than 1 week. Out of the nearly 2 million titles offered by Barnes and Noble, we debuted at about #1.5 million as far as sales ranking is concerned. That means about 1.5 million books were doing better than us. That is normal for a book coming as far out as 3 months from now. Sales began, and we rose steadily. Well, as of this evening, the book had risen to #796 at Barnes & Noble. (You can check yourself by clicking the B&N link below.) That is very unusual at this point.
While trying to anticipate the online demand plus the initial bookstore demand, the publisher must order a certain count of First Edition books to be printed weeks before the advance online orders even come in from Barnes & Noble and Amazon (whose ranking on my book has risen as high as #13,661 out of 2 million, even though they are charging $10 more).
What this combination of facts means is that there is a very good chance the First Edition will sell out. Please know that for all those who order, a book will be provided, but only a certain number will receive a First Edition. I also know that I'm not personally a big deal, but to bibliophiles, First Editions can be. The bottom line on The Bottom of the Sky is, if you want a First Edition, you should order it now. There are links to B&N and Amazon through Riverbend Publishing's web site or The Bottom of the Sky web site (which is nearly done now, and looking pretty good).
Please see links below, if interested.
Thank you,
Bill
bottomofthesky.com
(Still under construction, so it's a little "sticky".)
search.barnesandnoble.com
amazon.com |
