Every once in a while, when things aren't going so great in life and you're down and depressed and so desperate for something good to happen, something good actually does. For me it was "DJ Ice" the publication of "DJ Rising" in French by Belgian publisher Alice-Editions. All I can say is whoa... Mostly because somehow it feels just as amazing as it did when it was published the first time around in America.
An odd and a bit tragic thing about being an author in the publishing world is how little control you have over things and how little you're actually told about what's happening. Unless an author is big time, he/she has no control over the stuff you'd think an author would for sure have control over like the cover of the book. With a foreign version, the author doesn't even speak with the foreign publisher. Because of this, the book was published in French sometime in September or October (I think) and little ole me had no idea it'd even happened.
Anyway, back to the real whoa part. The book... whoa... I was blown away, not only to see little excerpts of the French version, such a beautiful language, but also to see the cover, which is AWESOME! I don't speak a ton of French, but I know enough to read most of what the publisher has about the book on their website and seeing how differently they did things from my US publisher, Little, Brown (Hachette), and especially seeing the critic reviews in French, has been overwhelming in the coolest of ways. I'm just really beside myself that the French version is out and that a whole new set of readers might pick up the book.
It is a bit weird that the book is out and I don't have a copy of it and have only even seen it via the internet, but to be fair, I am in a little city in China. And thanks to Nikki at Little, Brown, I'll be getting four copies of the book sometime next week. I just can't wait to hold them and flip through the pages and read the words in another language. So freaking surreal!
I feel like Marley's story has mirrored my own in a lot of ways. And I do sometimes want to pinch myself when things like this happen, but am always too afraid to really do it... just in case I am asleep and dreaming. I mean dang... DJ Rising in French... who would want to wake up from that? Not me, that's for sure. No way. Not ever.
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