A story: My first signed limited edition
I’ve been a long-time member of this site (and the previous one). I don’t post much but I have a story that I thought this group might appreciate for its connection to Stephen King and signed limiteds.
I started collecting SK books when I was still in high school. Like a lot of people my age, the first time I encountered The Dark Tower was when I saw it listed at the front of Pet Sematary. That sent me down a rabbit hole of mail order dealers, small presses and limited editions that I still haven’t emerged from thirty-five years later. The cornerstone of my collection is a mint first edition of The Gunslinger I bought for $200 from a want ad in the back of Castle Rock. A year later I got my first signed limited Stephen King book when I ordered Prime Evil right from Grant. I've spent my adult life and too much money on my collection and loved every minute of it.
I've also been writing stories almost as long as I’ve been able to read. When I discovered Stephen King, I finally recognized someone doing what I wanted to do. Being a writer. Writing books. My dream since I was in high school was to one day see my book on a shelf next to Stephen King’s. If I was really lucky maybe there’d be a signed, limited edition.
Spent a lot of years not writing and then a lot of years writing terrible novels. About five years ago I finally got an agent for a thriller I wrote. My first novel, AND THERE HE KEPT HER, came out in June 2022. My publisher put together an amazing marketing package for a first novel by a nobody that consisted of a custom box with the title routed into the top, and inside a copy of the ARC, a prescription bottle of pills, flyers for missing women, and a chain with a lock. I consider it my first limited edition. When the paperback was released, Barnes & Noble insisted on a new cover and chose ATHKH as the Mystery/Thriller Monthly Pick in February 2023.
August of this year, my second book came out, WHERE THE DEAD SLEEP. The New York Times called it a “well-paced whodunit” and “devastating.”
A few months before the paperback came out, I found out that Target chose WHERE THE DEAD SLEEP as its January book club pick. Target book club editions are exclusive to Target and include unsigned and signed editions. In September, three huge boxes showed up at my house with 7000 (thousand!) tip-in sheets. Took me two weeks to sign them all.
Here’s a short Instagram reel of me signing. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2C4c...RlODBiNWFlZA==
In January, I got to see my book in Target for the first time. It’s officially my first signed, limited edition. (7000 copies may be stretching the definition of “limited” but bear with me.) It doesn’t have a slipcase or a goatskin binding or marbled endpapers but I couldn’t be more proud of it. It’s the realization of a life-long dream thanks to a lot of hard work and years of inspiration from Stephen King.
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