While I was editing the first-pass pages, Bantam was making plain-cover galleys out of them. This is the very same pages bound into a trade-paperback sized book. The real cover isn't designed yet, so the plain-cover galley has, yes, a plain cover. Bantam sends them to other writers to ask for blurbs, and to those of the trade publications that need a long lead time for reviews. All the typos, etc. that I so painstakingly took out of the pages I had (and sent back yesterday) are in these galleys, but reviewers are used to that, as are we writers who are reading for blurbs.

So who are these blurbers? My editor and I made a list of writers I admire, whose readership would in some way overlap with mine, either because of the kinds of books they write or because they set their books in New York City, ABSENT FRIENDS being a very NYC book. The ones I know personally I asked personally, because when people want me to blurb their books I absolutely hate it when the galley comes out of the blue with no request first. The ones I don't know, Bantam is asking. Most writers are very generous about blurbs, given what a pain it is to be asked to read a book that wasn't on your agenda, just to do someone else a favor. But we all had it done for us early in our careers, so we try to help. Sometimes people turn you down because they're buried; I've done that, too. You can't take it personally, and it won't make or break the book.

The other thing about this particular plain-cover galley is that it's not really plain. These covers are usually a colored matte card stock with the book's and the author's name on them in black. This one is glossy white with the book's name in a sort of chevron (from the title page) in red. This signals to early readers that Bantam is intending this book to be a big deal. Also, they're bringing it out under the Delacorte imprint, not the Bantam imprint. This is a signal that this is a "literary crime novel" as opposed to a "genre" novel. I'll talk more about the practical meanings of this in a later post.