Animal House, 175
Bluto, 175
bums, bleacher 93
Caddyshack, 173
Catie the ballgirl, 174
Choose Your Own Adventure books, 35
Denver, John, 179
ginger snaps 103
ground rule double see rulebook double
Human Rain Delay see Hargrove, Mike
intestinal parasites, 228
InnerSpace, 228
Kant, Immanuel, 247
Katie the ballgirl, 174
McDuck, Scrooge 221
McMaster-Carr catalog, 162, 163
Quaid, Dennis 228
produce 103, 104
Schilling, Curt 231
toothbrushing, 156
secret of life, the universe, and everything 237
rulebook double 101
Village People, 179
WNBA, 232

One of the things I didn’t realize until I started writing for the BP annuals was how little visibility authors have into what happens after the manuscript is turned over. I knew, vaguely, of a lot of different minor issues with this clearance or that photo, and I knew the release moved back because I had a spring training event I was originally supposed to be selling books for, and the release date slipped past that (I gave out bookmarks).

But I really didn’t know that Amazon was shipping books out the door until the day they did it. I didn’t know why some people’s date moved all the way up, and why other people’s copies didn’t ship until yesterday (or why the release date re-appeared as April 2nd for a while, though Amazon shipped a ton of copies out one day).

This is one of the reasons that authors are so obsessed with their Amazon sales rank. Amazon sales rank isn’t a great indicator of how many copies are moving, but they’re some piece of information, and the alternative is not knowing anything until you get a royalty statement from the publisher in a year or two.

All of which is to say – I’m sorry I haven’t been able to answer those questions. I wish I could, I really do.

Yeah. I had no idea. I’d seen the date go back a few times, and that was my fear – to see it release a full week-and-change early is a little shocking.

And now… we’ll see. I have high hopes.

Usually, the publisher has someone local they work with. Not in Seattle, though, so for the advance copies and the Houghton-Mifflin catalog, they hit me up for any kind of decent photo. As a result, these feature a headshot of me, taken by my wife when we were in Trafalgar Square.

That works. For a photo to go into the book and so forth, my brother, who’s a fine photographer, took a couple shots while he was up here for a weekend.

I’d hoped I’d get a subtle plug in for a chunk of my book collection*.

There’s the mug-shot style

I’ll spare you the side view. We also did a three-ball monte thing.

and

That second one’s taken on a baseball diamond at home plate, for veracity’s sake.

The publisher didn’t like those, and wanted something more like a traditional headshot. And, because it was publishing, I didn’t hear back on that first batch for a while and ended up needing to produce a suitable set within days. I’ll talk about that whole part of the publishing experience later. I went to the guy who did a frankly awesome job on my wedding. I discovered that my really short hair shows a lot of scalp under studio lighting, but I didn’t have time to grow it out. Also, uh, my face is… anyway. We submitted four photos:

“I’m extremely difficult to photograph for a variety of embarrassing reasons”

Then there’s the friendly, “Do you like my book?”

The “I’m Bill Simmons’ long-lost younger, Germanic brother from a different mother”:

And the one I’ve got in my blogger profile:

I would bet you can guess which of those four the publisher decided was clearly the best, and will be on the back cover of the book.

*Top Shelf: Cobb, a biography, The New Biographical History of Baseball, The Worst Baseball Pitchers of All Time, Me and the Spitter, Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Baseball and Billions, The Hidden Language of Baseball, Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Lineups, Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Blunders, Baseball Dynasties, Baseball Signs and Plays, Saving the Pitcher, Baseball Between the Numbers, McGraw of the Giants, The Rules and Lore of Baseball, Curve Ball, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Out of Left Field, Triumph and Tragedy, Spitters, Beanballs, and the Incredible Shrinking Strike Zone, 9 Innings, A Mencken Chrestomathy, the New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, the Thin Man, Houdini on Magic, The Big Knockover. Head shelf: Total Baseball, BP99-06, Ball Four (on top: Pool and Billiards), my head, Forging Genius, Weaver on Strategy, Wild, High, and Tight, Paths to Glory, Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, Juicing the Game, Eight Men Out, Cap Anson 2 & 3, This Ain’t Brain Surgery (on top: ???, Green Cathedrals, Bringing Down the House). Bottom Shelf: The Baseball Encyclopedia, The Complete Armchair Book of Baseball, Moneyball, Dollar Sign on the Muscle, Game of Shadows, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, Baseball, Lords of the Realm, The Last Yankee, Tough Calls, How LIfe Imitates the World Series, Baseball: the Writer’s Game, A Great and Glorious Game, You Gotta Have Wa, The Glory of Their Times, How Con Games Work, Caro’s Book of Poker Tells, Winner’s Guide to Texas Hold ‘em, The Theory of Poker, Winning Low Limit Hold ‘em, Super System, Harrington on Hold ‘em vol. 2, Play Poker Like the Pros, (Lederer’s book?), Hold ‘em Poker for Advanced Players, Harrington on Hold ‘em vol. 1 (on top: Brew Chem 101, The Odds, The Big Sleep, Fortune’s Formula, The Intuitionist, Hold ‘em Poker, two Raymond Chandlers.