It's with a degree of sadness that I report my editor and the History Press, Christen Thompson, has accepted another job and is departing the company at the end of the week. All the heavy lifting has been completed on
Inside the Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse, so this move shouldn't really impact my book, but still. Christen took over when my acquiring editor departed, and she worked hard to "get" my book and the approach I was taking. She brought some of those misconceptions spread by the film version with her, but soon figured out what I was doing with the Chicken Ranch and zeroed in on my wavelength. We exchanged what seemed like a thousand emails going back and forth on titles, getting deep into the weeds with discussion of SEO, advertising restrictions the title could encounter and the like. When I turned in a final manuscript almost 10,000 words longer than what my contract called for, she didn't demand I cut it but pushed it through the editorial process intact. She inadvertently paid me a huge compliment by saying "few of our books actually are as nuanced" as
Inside the Chicken Ranch, which was something I think I really needed to hear at that point of the conversation. While I expect the book to do just fine without her, I'm going to miss having someone on the inside to experience the fruition of this years-long Quixotic quest with. She did a good job, and will be missed.
On the other hand, I've got some small but significant information to share with you good folks today. For the past seven years, people everywhere I go have asked me "Where can I buy your book?" or "When can I by your book?" or "Dude, do you have a book or not?" Well, now I can answer "Yes!" to all of those, although that answer won't really make much sense for the first two questions. What I'm trying to say is that
Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now listed on both
Amazon.com and
BarnesAndNoble.com! Pre-orders aren't active at Amazon, but Barnes and Noble will be more than happy to let you reserve a copy. It doesn't seem to be listed with Hastings, Books a Million, Book People or Powell's yet, but I'll keep checking and update when it is.
And, finally, History Press has started initial promotion of my book on the
History Press blog! It's actually just a reprint of my blog post here from last week, but it's alerting a wider world to the shenanigans I've wrought. I expect to contribute more posts between now and August.
Title: Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse
Author: Jayme Lynn Blaschke
Publication Date: August 1, 2016
ISBN: 978.1.46713.563.4
And remember,
Ghosts of the Chicken Ranch is still available if you just can't wait for August 1 to get here:
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