Booklist and Kirkus Like Tune in Tokyo!

The reviews of the new AmazonEncore edition of my tawdry book Tune in Tokyo are starting to roll in, and so far so good! Booklist and Kirkus had nice things to say, Booklist even going so far as to compare it to David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day. From Booklist:

Sayonara, America. Hello, Kitty...Aside from such classroom encounters and problems of his own with the Japanese language that...recall David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Anderson regales his readers with tales of Japanese popular culture and his own social life, clubbing and karaoke-barhopping around Tokyo...diverting observations on a country that gaijin Anderson calls "America on Opposite Day.

From Kirkus:

Anderson reliably mines the rich comic potential inherent in simple, innocent miscommunications and misunderstandings, but most impressive is the author's ability to sustain his hyperactive comedic voice throughout most of the book without losing his edge. A laugh-out-loud look at the East/West culture clash.

The book is out November 29, you can reserve your copy here, so what are you waiting for?

Big TiT News!

Hear ye, hear ye, folks. A little publishing outfit in Seattle called Amazon--I think they have a website?--has picked up my book Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries for actual real (i.e., not self-) publication in paperback and as an e-book in December! Can you believe they've made such a reckless/brilliant business decision?! It's through one of their publishing imprints, Amazon Encore, and what's going on, has the world gone mad?

The answer is yes, but things won't go completely batballs crazy until December, so don't lose your shit yet. Above is the new cover for the book and, shockingly, it's a billion times hotter than the one I did. Who knew that actual graphic designers could improve upon the book jacket design work of a very fast typist like myself?

Sadly, Oprah has now gone off the air so it's not possible to be one of her upcoming book club picks. But that's ok, because who wants to have to sit and talk to Oprah?

Tune in Tokyo Successfully (If Fleetingly) Placed on a Bookshelf at the Strand Bookstore, NYC

Fans of my book Tune in Tokyo have obviously been clamoring for the book to be available in bookstores and not just for sale on Amazon. They've been climbing walls, overturning police cars, and setting themselves on fire in desperate attempts to have their voices heard. I feel your pain, dear readers. I also wish that bookstores would heed the wishes of the people. The people will not be silenced! It's almost exactly like what's going on in Egypt now. (Awesome/Tasteless Segue Into Topical Subject Award, please.)

Anyway, none of this is true, but if it were, fans of Tune in Tokyo would have been celebrating for roughly two hours last Thursday, when the book was placed on a display shelf downstairs at the mighty Strand bookstore here in NYC. The Women's National Book Association (of which I'm a member, because I'm every woman, as you know) was holding its first open mike night and I was on the standby list, yay! I didn't get a chance to read, but since I was on the list my book got some good face time on the display shelf of readers' works.

Another open mike night at the Strand is in the works for the spring, so hopefully my book will be available to buy at one bookstore in the world for two more hours in late April/early May. A victory for the people, in other words.

First Signs of the Apocalypse: Tune in Tokyo and Its Disgraceful Author Get Notice in a Major Magazine OMG

Folks, Publishers Weekly, the esteemed publication of the publishing industry that usually displays very good judgment in all things, has done the unthinkable and printed an article about me (with a photo) in their actual print magazine and not just on their website! This is the closest they will ever get to disseminating hard-core pornography, and will surely come back to haunt the PW folks’ dreams once Sarah Palin finds out about it and gets out her Twitter rifle. (This profile is available online here)

Not only did PW do this, but, in the same issue, they also gave my book, Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries, a very favorable review (online here), which means they are more likely than ever to experience the flames of unholy hellfire when baby Jesus comes back during Armageddon to decree what books and magazines the saved get to take with them to heaven and which ones will be sent directly to one of Hell’s many mezzanines via Satan’s favorite vehicle, the Toyota Prius.

All of this depravity has been made possible thanks to PW’s first-ever PW Select quarterly self-publishing supplement, which is featured in the December 20 issue of PW. Below is a photo I took of the front page of the supplement, which mentions me and my book and OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE SOMEBODY CALL RUDOLPH!



I'm speechless, but at least I can still type, so let's wrap this up: I guess my feelings can be best summed up by Laura Dern in Wild at Heart when she says to Nicholas Cage "You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt." Either that line or the one where Nicholas Cage says he has "a boner with a capital O."

Important Book Marketing News: Tune in Tokyo Bookmarks A Go-Go

Everyone knows that any author who has self-published a book, even if that book is stupidly award-worthy like mine, faces an uphill struggle in the fight for visibility in the marketplace. People just don't care about your dumb project! That's why it's the author's job to make them care. Force them to care. Dare them to care. If you are successful at this then you will have a world full of people wondering what life was like before they cared about the book you wrote. And the best way to be successful at this is obvious: bookmarks.

People love bookmarks because they can be used for many things: picking your teeth, cleaning your fingernails, scratching your upper back, dusting the dandruff out of your hair. But did you know they can also be used to mark your place in a book so that you can go back to that place easily the next time you are on the toilet? It's true. So the good news for you is that I now have Tune in Tokyo bookmarks available. The first 10 people to email me and ask for one will get one. Just email me and tell me Tune in Tokyo is the book that made you want to be a dancer, and I'll send you several! Because you deserve at least that many.

Tune in Tokyo Gets Some Love from the Logo Channel!

Great news for you, readers! My book Tune in Tokyo has been written up by the Logo Channel's Trip Out Gay Travel site, yay! I know it's very important for all y'all to have new TiT-related things to read while blowing off work and touching yourself inappropriately.

Your welcome!

I'm Broke-Ass of the Week!

Adding to the long, long list of awards and kudos I've been receiving in the wake of the publication of my book (full disclosure: it's a very short list), I've now been named Broke-Ass of the Week on Broke-Ass Stuart's Goddamn Website.

Next stop: the Daytime Emmys.