Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel

A Letter from the Author
People often ask me, Mr. Gary, why don t you write more books? And I say to them Why don t you write more books, huh? And they say, But seriously. You ve only published three books and you re almost forty. What s wrong with you? Well, the thing is I can polish off a book in a week or two (eat my shorts, Jack Kerouac), but the modern writer has many other obligations.

The first step in promoting your book is to make a video starring James Franco and featuring other authors such as Jeffrey Eugenides, Mary Gaitskill, Jay McInerney and a cute weenie dog. Between writing the script, casting, and suing various catering companies, the process can take up to two years.

Then the modern writer has to go on tour. Since my last book, Super Sad Something or Other came out eight months ago I have given 249 readings in the United States and in dangerous foreign countries such as Colombia, Russia and Scotland (I still can t legally talk about what happened in that Glasgow pub). For the paperback I will give another 249 readings hitting the pasta-paella belt in Southern Europe, but also venturing into unheard-of smaller cities in America, such as Tempeh, which I m pretty sure is a kind of vegan food as well as a small metropolis.

When you add the trailer filming time to the touring time to the two weeks it takes to actually write a book, that s four years and two weeks. And then there s the post-touring-filming-writing-suing-your-caterer stint in rehab, which, depending on your publisher s rehab budget, can take up to another year. So you see writing a book and then selling it to wonderful book buyers such as yourself is a long and chilling process. Thank you for your support. My next book 20 Things I Learned the Hard Way in a Dank Glasgow Drinking Establishment