Yesterday, we sold the last two copies of the limited edition hardcover for To Slow Down The Time. Today, I learned that Skylight Books wants to stock the paperback in their store. Right now, I’m sitting on the stairs wondering what to do with my hands.
Skylight is my favorite bookstore in Los Angeles. I browse there all the time. I cannot explain what this means to me. I am so grateful.
Tonight I’m putting some To Slow Down The Time hardcover orders together. It has been one week since we opened pre-orders, and the stock on the limited edition hardbacks has so far been reduced to single digits. That’s crazy, man. Honestly.
Now, as my eyes widen on the task of actually assembling 100 of these beauties, I can’t help but feel pretty humbled. My continued thanks for supporting this project and believing in creativity.
If you’ll allow me just a second: Today is a big day for me. That’s the cover of the book that I made with Ian Dingman. And, starting now, it is available for PRE-ORDER!
The part where I pitch you on taking part in that is short. The book is 8.5″ square and will be available in both hardcover and paperback. If you would like a hardcover, however, you have to pre-order. The hardcovers are limited edition (only 100 made), and they are hand bound in speckled canvas and adorned with textured patch artwork. Uh huh. They are hand bound by me. Due to that each is special and slightly different. And if you know me, that means that they are all made with a dire amount of love and perfectionism. All pre-orders will be signed. And all pre-orders (paperback included!) will come with a set of 5 exclusive postcards featuring artwork from the book.
Sorry to break out the bold on you there.
The history is a little bit longer. This adventure started in April 2009 when I felt especially unsure of my writing and asked my friend, illustrator Ian Dingman, if I could write some stories inspired by his paintings and post them on my blog. I just wanted to be writing. I wanted to challenge myself and stay creative. The trick worked. I kept writing and writing and soon we had a wide variety of stories about a wide variety of things. They took on different lengths and voices and styles and tones. Eventually, I stopped sharing them online and we got this crazy idea that it might be nice to collect all of the best and publish them in a book. This is that book.
This has never been a project to make money. It’s only ever been a project to make something inspired. If I may say, I think we succeeded. I’m infinitely proud to call this my first project. The artwork is beautiful, and the published books themselves follow suit. This is all to say nothing of my writing, which I won’t. I will only say that I hope even just one of the 19 illustrated stories that we’ve collected in To Slow Down The Time finds a way to speak to you in some way.
If you pre-order your copy of the book, it should arrive on or slightly before the book’s official release on September 29. At that point the paperback copies will also be available via some other outlets but, you know, without any signatures or nifty extras. And, oh, if you’re living outside of the U.S., order from me anytime and we’ll ship to you no problem. Nobody is left out.
Please feel free to reblog or pass on to your friends or anyone else you think may be interested in what we’ve made. And if you have any questions, you can absolutely email.
If you read this far, here’s that handy book website once more: To Slow Down The Time: Stories. The site has lots more details and a preview of the inside.
With all that said—THANK YOU x3000 for allowing me to share this with you.
Matthew "Mallard" Allard is a fiction writer living in Los Angeles, California. This is his website.
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