My Little Square BOOK?!?

I wasn’t going to announce my book until it was released, but today Barnes & Noble is offering 25% pre-orders. And I’ll be honest, that’s better than I can do selling direct! So ready or not, here we go!

It’s funny, I don’t even have *MY* final copies yet, but I really didn’t want to miss out on sharing the surprise B&N discount. To see all the various places you can buy the book, in any of the 3 formats (eBook, Paperback, or Hardcover), head over to this nifty site for a list of links. Amazon doesn’t have cover images for some reason, but they do offer Prime shipping. Still, that’s not quite the same deal that B&N is offering on the pre-sale. Plus, I think B&N offers free shipping on orders over $40, so if you want to buy a couple books (they don’t have to be mine!) you could score free shipping there too. This is starting to feel like an ad for Barnes & Noble… hmm…

But Wait, There’s (Maybe) More…

Like I said above, I can’t match B&N when it comes to discounts, but if you would like a signed and/or personalized copy of either (or both!) books, I’m selling them directly from my Etsy store. The best I can do is free shipping to the continental US, and whatever personalization you’d like me to write inside. If you’d like to go that route, please visit The Nerdlings Stuff Shack. (NOTE: It’s still a pre-order, the book isn’t released until May 1st, and I still don’t even have my copies! LOL!)

I have to admit, when I got the author proofs (photographed above), I was pretty impressed. Not like, “wow I’m so awesome” impressed, but rather I didn’t expect it to be as physically substantial. I really drew a lot of comics, y’all! And this book only represents the first year or so!

Why the First Year(ish)?

When I started doing the layout for the book, it was difficult to decide in exactly what order I should put the comics. Should I look for themes? Storylines? Group them by number of panels? But then I noticed that if I stuck close to the order in which they were drawn, you could really see My Big Round World evolve. It started out as a joke, and then a comically (pun intended) bad example of art. But as the weeks went on, the characters started to get their own personalities, and I think they all got a bit more adorable. It shamelessly reminded me of my cartoonist hero, Jim Davis:

I’m not saying I’m anything near the level of Jim Davis — but seeing Garfield change in his first couple years really did hit home! So I decided keeping this book to about a year’s worth of comics, and in roughly a chronological order would be pretty spiffy.

I hope you agree. :)

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