Around the World and Back Again
“Boy Does World” makes its debut on Kindle and as a new special gift for paid subscribers to The Back Half
With new subscribers coming onboard The Back Half and Substack finally providing an efficient way of providing perks, I wanted to re-up this post from last spring about my book, Boy Does World: Fifteen Years of Bad Behaviors, Bad Attitudes, and Happy Endings.
If you have a paid-tier subscription, simply go to The Back Half homepage, choose the Perks from the menu and, presto, you can download your own e-copy of Boy Does World, ready to read on the device of your choosing.
Or, click here!
And, yes, if you’re a new subscriber via my Books & Bakes read-a-thon to benefit Cake4Kids, it’s your perk, too!
There will be some more perks coming in the next few months, including a previously unpublished short story that will debut here exclusively for paid subscribers.
Thanks for supporting The Back Half and have a great summer of reading!
A few years back when I sent my book, Boy Does World, out into the actual world, my publisher only offered a physical version of the book. Amazon’s Kindle was no longer new but it and other e-readers hadn’t reached the ubiquity level they enjoy these days, so the only non-physical option I had was a PDF version that didn’t work well so I decided to skip it.
Here we are today and I’m able to do it myself, no publisher needed. Which is a blessing because my relationship with that publisher was fraught. So today Boy Does World is officially available for Kindle.
One of the reasons I’m excited to have this e-book version available is precisely because of a bad decision that publisher made. When I started planning Boy Does World I reached out to my friend Tony Frye who had served as art director for Metro Weekly for years (D.C. folks have also seen his work from the Human Rights Campaign to Annie’s Paramount Steak House). He provided a striking and bold cover design, complete with the Tootsie Pop world that I’ve always loved.
But, when the time came for actual production, my publisher balked at the cover. Among other things, the didn’t want my name to be at the top above the title — apparently that sort of design is reserved for established, famous writers.
Bullshit, of course, but ultimately it was threatening the project so I acquiesced and told them to show me what they had in mind.
I had been very clear with them about the need to explain the topic of the book to their graphic designer. A couple people there had thought they were working on a travel book. Which, kind of funny, but not conducive to coming up with a marketing plan.
While that was happening, I flew out to San Francisco to do some pre-publication promotion at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention. When the plane landed I got an email on my phone with the draft cover attached. Wireless data speeds being what they were then, it didn’t finish downloading until I was at baggage claim where I saw it and started crying.
It was the ugliest fucking thing I’d ever seen. If it were designed today it would be posted as a “Graphic Design is My Passion” meme. Almost all green, it depicted a car driving along a road next to the Washington Monument, with a sprinkling of trees that looked like elf turds. The designer had gone the travel memoir route and made it hideous to boot.
To condense, I yelled a lot over the phone and a compromise version was created, keeping Tony’s Tootsie-Pop, at least. Still, the cover has always stuck in my craw as a half-assed version of a superior work.
Now I get to share it as originally intended, complete with my name on the top because I do not give a shit about hidebound publishing “rules” about where names can go. I’m happy that people can finally see what Tony created for me.
So, here are the details. Boy Does World is available through the Amazon Kindle store for just $4.99.
But! If you are a paid subscriber to The Back Half, you will receive a free Boy Does World e-book, readable on any EPUB capable device or app — so, Kindle, Kobo, iOS, Android, Mac, PC, and many more. Subscribe for just $5.00 per month (or make a pledge for my Books & Bakes read-a-thon benefiting Cake4Kids and receive a free six-month paid subscription) then visit The Back Half’s Perks section to download your copy.
Over the coming months, I’m going to be publishing some other work via Kindle and the same deal will apply for those. Those will include some “from the vault” stories plus some new work. So subscribe or upgrade now! Or get thee to Amazon. Either way, I hope it gives you a few good laughs.
