Tony Brasunas

It’s the 11th, there are 11 hours to go, and the book now has 132 fabulous First Readers! We’re getting close to the Best Sellers list. Thank you!

If you haven’t yet signed up, can you become a First Reader?

If you did sign up, forward this to friends. If you’re doing holiday shopping, consider Double Happiness as an insightful gift.

I don’t know with certainty that it will take 200 sales tomorrow on 12/12 to land on the Best Sellers; that’s an educated estimate. What I do know is that if you are planning to get Double Happiness, by signing up as a First Reader today and buying the book tomorrow, your purchase will combine with those of others and launch the book higher.

Tonight at the Launch Celebration, we’ll get a bump. To get to 150, we’ll need 18 more; to get to 188, we’ll need 56 more; and for the 200 goal, we’ll need 78 more. Can you help us do it?

In any event, I’m unbelievably excited to see many of you tonight for the Launch Celebration and to launch Double Happiness into the world tonight at midnight!

You’re wonderful. You inspire me. Without you I wouldn’t be here. Thank you.

Lo and behold, this Thursday, December 12, is the big one, launch day, my life’s biggest undertaking come to fruition. It will be my best opportunity to launch the book up the Amazon charts! Can you help?

If buying Double Happiness is a possibility — as a gift* or for yourself — consider buying it on 12/12. I would be deeply grateful. In fact, sign up to be a First Reader, and I’ll send you an email reminder on launch day and a holiday gift! My goal is to sign up 200 First Readers and peak on the Best Sellers list.

Let’s launch Double Happiness up the charts!

Be a hero, be a Double Happiness First Reader >

*Double Happiness would make a particularly nice gift for: armchair travelers, English teachers, China buffs, adventure backpackers, young people in their twenties and thirties seeking a place in this swiftly changing world, and readers interested in a young man’s coming of age in a foreign land.

Gratitude from the bottom of my heart,
Towards double happiness,
Tony

My dear friends,

After over a decade of writing and revising, after a year of publication planning, after an amazing kickstarter campaign and countless hours’ work with an editor, a proofreader, an illustrator, a book designer, and a cover designer, I’m humbled, moved, and delighted to announce…

The publication date of Double Happiness
12/12
December 12, 2013

That’s the day!

Double Happiness Day.

The day will arrive on the heels of an incredibly busy month for me and for the Double Happiness Team.

On that day, in addition to many other amazing moments, I will have perhaps my best chance to place Double Happiness on Amazon’s bestseller lists. Please mark the date on your calendar now. If you or anyone you know is going to purchase a copy, please consider making the purchase that day.

I’m compiling a list of First Readers, people who are going to buy the book the day it comes out. They will receive special treatment and a gift from me (as well as a reminder!). I hope to have 200 people on that list so Double Happiness can pop up the Amazon lists right away. Would you be willing to join in to help push the book up the charts? Can you find others who might be? To be a First Reader, just sign up!

Double Happiness Day
12/12
First Reader List

This is an amazing feeling. I have the first copy of Double Happiness in my hands!

It’s not a publication copy of the book. Those don’t exist yet. What I have in my hands is what is often called a Galley or an Advance Review Copy (ARC).

To get to this point, the last month has been unbelievably busy. And not just for me. The whole Double Happiness team that I’ve been blessed to assemble (thank you generous Backers) has been very busy.

First, after I completed the final manuscript in all its countless respects, I sent it to the book designer I hired, the famous Joel Friedlander, who had already worked with me in August to design the interior. Joel then flowed the final text of the book, inserted the gorgeous maps hand-drawn by my illustrator, Estelle Kim, and produced the first proof. I received that proof and sent it to my proofreader, the amazing Nicole Francois, who set to work on the final manuscript with her fine-toothed comb. Meanwhile, after a back-and-forth that many of you participated in via polls, the talented cover designer, Laura Duffy, created the photographically beautiful front and back covers. With those covers, and that proof, I was able to do it — make Galleys.

When the box of Galleys arrived at my door, I was overcome with gratitude and delight, and I chose to capture the moment of opening that box and holding the first copy in my hands. Here is that moment in a video I created to share with you: Video at Kickstarter.

If you didn’t click over to the video, here’s what that Galley looks like:

Yes, it’s just the ARC. But still, here it is, Double Happiness.

Already, since receiving them, I’ve sent ARCs out to authors and reviewers in the hopes of getting endorsement “blurbs” for the final cover. And the proofread proof is now back with the book designer, who is busy creating the final proof for the final publication version of the book.

Wow, my dear friends, it won’t be long now. It will be in your hands soon.

The results are in! To all of you who voted in the poll, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.

It turns out one cover won both polls — the public poll I held here on the blog, and a smaller informal poll I carried out with two dozen people in the publishing industry.

And the winner is…

The cover that features a photograph shot in Tiananmen Square…

The cover that depicts the political events in Chapter 7…

So, yes, this is the cover I am refining and enhancing now with my cover designer!

The truth is, this choice was one of the hardest I’ve had to make during this entire journey to publication. It isn’t easy to choose a single image to represent an entire book. A proverb suggests that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but like many books, Double Happiness has over 100,000 words! At first, I was split, and favored another cover, the one listed as #5 on the poll.

But I’ve come to like this one far more over the last month. I find it bold and iconic, and it manages thematically to balance depictions of both a sedentary and a peripatetic traveler (me), a narrator who is neither just a backpacker on the roads, nor just a teacher in a classroom. I’m a young man, adventurous and curious in a changing China. It also looks great in thumbnail, which is how people who shop online for books these days see the cover first.

Not far behind, taking second place in both polls, was the cover that appeared as #3 in the poll. That cover has a lot of appeal to me, too, and I know it did to many of you as well, and it is now the leading candidate to be featured on the back cover of the book. It’s a beautiful and elegant image. The issues with #3 are that it doesn’t provide quite as iconic a cover, in my opinion, and that it depicts the book as perhaps solely a story of backpacking, when in fact nearly half of Double Happiness takes place in Guangzhou where I am a teacher in a high school.

Yes, the cover is getting there. One final question for you, if I may:

Are you, or do you know, an author or a book reviewer who might be interested in reading or reviewing Double Happiness now, with the possibility of a quotation of theirs appearing on the cover?

I would be delighted to communicate with them about any terms they might have. I have one quote ready for the cover and would love to add another.

A final time, my gratitude! Thank you so much for your thoughts and contributions. These are exciting times, and Double Happiness will be in the world very soon.

Kickstarter is gloriously finally complete, and I’ve switched gears to making the book. I’m working with a professional cover designer, and we have several designs that I believe have great potential. Can you help me by voting below for the image that you think has the best potential to be the Double Happiness cover?

Imagine an Eat, Pray, Love meets Into the Wild type of journey. Which cover would draw you in? Does the cover need to inform you that the story takes place both in a classroom and outdoors on a long backpacking journey? Do you prefer simplicity? Do you want a photo of me on the cover?

Note: All the covers are of course works in progress and will improve once we choose the best one (or two) to focus on and enhance.

Essentially, I want to present a great image to attract people who would enjoy and benefit from this story — as well as to draw in those who might, you know, judge a book by its…

Vote below. To vote for your favorite, just click on it. To vote for more than one, tick the boxes and click ‘Vote.’

[[POLL CLOSED]]

Also, please leave a comment below to share why you voted the way you did.

If you don’t think any of the images are any good, and we should go back to the drawing board, do tell me that.

And for those of you who helped me choose my author photo in another poll, thank you! That photo will likely grace the book’s back cover.