Pete The Chop

The holiday shopping season is officially here, and if you’re looking for a gift for the U2 fan in your life, may I humbly suggest U2 – A Diary?

I’m the author and, in case you’ve never visited here before, this is the blog that I used to both share and receive information with/from U2 fans all over the world during the writing of U2 – A Diary. The book was published a year ago (November 2008) and has received great feedback. You can click the reviews category to see what people have been saying about the book and learn why I think it’s a great gift for U2 fans.

In a nutshell, U2 – A Diary is the history of U2 as told in a timeline-style format with a couple thousand individual diary entries.

Amazon.com seems to have the best price at just under $20. It’s somewhat more expensive on Barnes & Noble’s web site. But if you prefer Barnes & Noble, you can use coupon B3U9U7U to get 15% off any one item online until December 9th.

If you’re outside the US, you can try Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, or see this old list I made of online stores worldwide that were selling the book. That’s an old post so it may not be perfectly accurate now.

One last note about the online reviews of U2 – A Diary: The poor review on Amazon.com is from a person who was banned from the U2 fan forum I manage, and the mediocre review on Barnes & Noble’s web site is actually for a different book (one that lists and details all of U2’s concert performances specifically).

If you’re new or if you just have questions about the book, feel free to leave a comment. I do reply as often as possible.

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I’m quite proud to report that U2 – A Diary sold out all 12 copies that were available for sale this past weekend at U2: The Hype and The Feedback — the first academic conference dedicated to U2.

There were about 6-8 other books available for sale, and each one seemed to have plenty of copies remaining when the conference was closing down on Sunday afternoon.

Yay me.

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Cathal McCarron, who’s written his own U2-related book called Me & U2 and is following the U2 360 Tour around, sent me an email that went like this:

There was a little stall with loadsa U2’s CDs, vinyl and DVDs outside the large music superstore in the main square in Zagreb yesterday. Guess what product had pride of place right slap bang in the middle of the stall…?

And in the minute or so I was there it was snapped up by one guy.

And he sent a couple pics, too:

So I guess I can say that the Croatian version has sold at least one copy for certain. Sure hope it’s sold more, though.

Thx for the pics, Cathal!

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How cool is this? The third translation of U2 – A Diary will be a Croatian version that’s due in stores on July 15 — just a few weeks before U2 brings the 360 World Tour to Zagreb in early August.

I’ll never get used to seeing my book in different languages.

The translation is being published by Menart, which I understand to be a music/record label that has just started translating and publishing books, too. And “U2 Dnevnik” is the first book they chose to translate! What’s really amazing to me is how incredibly enthusiastic Menart is about publishing and promoting this book. Get this:

• Just yesterday, they hosted a U2 Warm-up Party which included a DJ, a U2 tribute band, and “U2 Dnevnik” — all of this on an airplane, it seems! not an airplane, as Marin says in the comments below. Thx for clarifying that, Marin.
• On July 9, Menart is hosting a media event announcing the book. They invited me to attend, but it’s way too expensive to fly to Zagreb (about $3,000 USD) so they’ve asked me to send a 10-minute video answering some questions that the press might want answered. They say the video will air on Croatian TV (I’m not making that up) and during the press event.
• They’ve signed on Vecernji.hr as the media partner for the book launch, and they’re doing a contest where U2 fans will send in questions, they’ll pick the 10 best for me to answer, and when the answers are published, the winning fans get a copy of the book and a CD. (Presumably No Line….)

Is that amazing, or what? And to think that I couldn’t even convince my hometown newspaper to do a writeup on the book….

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Look what arrived in the mail this weekend:

It’s the Japanese translation of U2 – A Diary! The book is smaller than the original, but also came out at exactly 336 pages. Oh, and unlike the original, this one is a hardcover. I like it!

Seeing your name on any book is cool beyond words, but to then get to see your name on a book that’s been translated into another language? Are you kidding? Totally cool and surreal.

I hope the U2 fans in Japan, and any Japanese speakers/readers around the world who might order this version, enjoy the book. I’m told that the publisher who bought the rights and did the translation has a very good reputation for quality work. Sure looks like it from what I can tell … then again, I can’t understand a word of what’s inside.

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Raul was first to notice a cover image for U2, A Diary on Amazon:

I checked with Chris at Omnibus (my editor) to see if this is the cover, and the answer, in one word is:

Maybe.

There’s a big publishing industry trade show coming up in London and this is the cover they’re using for the promotional material that will be displayed there. There’s a chance it’ll be the final cover image, too. But also a chance it’ll change.

So, there you have it. Nice find, Raul.

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It has. One month since the last post, which was actually published while I was in Santa Clara, California. In the meantime, I’ve also been to:

• Portland
• Seattle
• New York
• San Francisco area (again)

So, yeah, just a little bit busy with travel. But if you’re curious to know what’s going on with U2, A Diary, here’s what I know:

• Omnibus has selected a designer.
• The designer has been working on something called a BLAD (Book Layout and Design), which I understand to be like a promotional mini-version of the book, which the publisher takes around to various book industry trade shows to drum up retail interest in the book. (I’m hopeful to see one of these BLADs soon and might be able to post about it here on the blog).
• Omnibus is wrapping up work on a Beatles book and will then dive in to production on U2, A Diary.

So, things are moving, albeit somewhat slowly at this point. Because we gave ourselves a lot of lead time between the due date of the manuscript and the expected publishing date, we’re not at all behind schedule or anything like that. I suspect I’ll be posting more in the coming weeks/months as things pick up.

Now you know.

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I’m noticing that the Amazon UK sales page for U2, A Diary now lists October 8, 2008, as the publication date. That used to show September 8th. And now the Amazon.com sales page also says October 8th, where previously it didn’t have a date listed.

Yet, just four days ago I checked in with Omnibus about the schedule and Chris (my editor) said, “We are still aiming for a September publication.” I’m going with Chris’ target as the accurate one.

It’s funny — in all the years of doing @U2 news, and trying to get copies of books in advance so we could review them, there was almost never any agreement between the publisher and the book stores (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) about when a book would be published. I don’t know enough about the publishing industry to understand why it’s like that….

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