PHILATELIC EDITION NEWS—

I’m delighted to report that the Limited Philatelic First Edition of HIT ME has arrived from the small-press printer. Even as I write these lines, the elves at the Mysterious Bookshop are packing books for shipment.

For those of you who’ve ordered the book, I have good news. And, if you haven’t ordered yet, I’ve got good news for you as well.

IF YOU’VE ALREADY ORDERED…it’s my pleasure to tell you that I’ve seen finished copies, and the book looks terrific. The printing, the paper, the binding, the limitation page, the custom postage stamp—everything works. I wish we could have gotten the book to you by Christmas, but that just wasn’t possible, and I hope you’ll feel that the result was worth the wait.

I hope you’ve received the custom souvenir sheet by now. It went out by First Class Mail within a day of our original receipt of your order, in a 6″x8″ flat mailer, but the mails are capricious around the holidays; if it hasn’t arrived by the first week of January, email me and we’ll send you a replacement.

Meanwhile, there’ll be a second souvenir sheet—this one custom-canceled—tucked into the book, with our thanks.

IF YOU HAVEN’T ORDERED…well, now’s your chance! And you won’t have to wait, either. We have copies at hand, and will have your book on its way to you within 24 hours. Both of the signed souvenir sheets, one mint and one custom-canceled, will be included with our compliments.

IF YOU’VE ORDERED AND WANT MORE COPIES…We can handle that, too. Our press run was limited to 500 copies, and the last I looked we had 142 unsold. If you want additional copies as gifts for philatelic friends, we’ll be happy to accommodate you for as long as they last.

IF YOU JUST WANT SOMETHING TO READ…then you’ll be every bit as happy with Mulholland’s trade edition, available February 12. Signed copies should be widely available, and I hope we’ll be able to supply some ourselves through our eBay store. But all of that can wait for a newsletter closer to the date.

In fact, everything else can wait. That’s enough from me for now. I won’t even clutter this up with graphics. I’ll just take a moment to wish you all the joys of the holiday season, philatelic and otherwise. And, since it looks as though we won’t run out of moments today after all, I’ll take one more to give thanks that the Mayan apocalypse doesn’t seem to have transpired. Not yet, anyway…