New Trade Paperback of THE LEISURE SEEKER out today. Finally.

Well, good. It's finally out there in the stores. (At least I hope it is.) The new trade paperback edition of THE LEISURE SEEKER.

It's kind of cool having a paperback come out. It's definitely different than the release of a hardcover book. I suppose there is something inherently fancy (some might say elitist) about the hardcover book. It's big, expensive, bulky, almost impossible to cram it into your back pocket or purse. But a hardcover book is solid. It feels like something that someone could discover at a library or a bookstore ten, fifty, even a hundred years from now. This is the sort of thing writers tend to fantasize about. (Mine is that someone finds a copy of my novel SECOND HAND at a thrift store of the future.)

Alas, we know there are a lot of people who just don't buy hardcover books. Most people, in fact. They say, "I'll buy it when it comes out in paperback". Why? Aside from the lower price, there's something really comfortable about a paperback, like well-worn jeans or a perfectly broken-in pair of sneakers. (I have no beef with the e-book, but it will never be the same as a book book.) It's not hard to imagine someone at the New Paperback Releases table at their local indie or chain bookstore, they pick up that paperback book, with its snazzy cover and satin varnish finish and decide to take a chance on it. It doesn't hurt that it's just $13.99.

They take it home, still excited about their new purchase and start reading it right away. And a few days later, by the time they're at the last page, the book is no longer new. Maybe it's got a crease or two or three in the spine, a few folded pages, a coffee stain from reading it at breakfast, but all that is good. It doesn't mean that the book has been used up, just...christened.

I suppose the fact that I'm more likely to mess up a paperback is exactly what I like about them. Reading doesn't necessarily have to be some formal affair, all stiff and bulky and hardcovered. Sometimes it's about finding something that you can just slip into and feel right at home.