Six months until Company

I really look forward to the new book. I liked Jennifer Government and really liked Syrup, so I'm expecting a masterpiece with this one. Someone needs to find a way to speed up this publication process. Maybe if they didn't have to waste time taking pictures of donuts that look just like pictures of donuts that someone else has already taken, that might help.

1st: I hate hardcovers from the bottom of my heart. But I just can't wait this time, I just can't!

2nd: Why oh why can't I pre-order it on the German Amazon page? I got five more days left in the wonderful paradise of Massachusetts until I'm going back into the bloody hellhole that spat me out, where I CAN'T PREORDER COMPANY!!!

I'm gonna go to bed now... too much frustration for one moment.

The bite in the new cover is bigger. Being an American, that sounds about right...

Cannot wait for Company. It's been a while since I read a good book...

I'm looking forward to it and I'll most likely preorder it. I guess I'd better order it now before it becomes like Syrup--you weren't kidding when you said it was impossible to find in canada. I've spent the last couple months looking for it, and I've even gone as far as searching online--no canadian retailers acknowledge it even EXISTS, except for Amazon.ca, who seem to think it's only available used. I'm considering just biting the bullet and ordering from amazon.com :p

As a graphic artist (I mean, novelist who whores himself to graphic arts until the Big Break), I think I could manipulate either of those doughnuts in Photoshop sufficiently to get around any copyright issues.

The kind of change you're showing could be made in dot-gain when printing.

BTW, I love hardcovers, especially if they have good art. I spent extra on eBay to get 'Syrup' as a first edtion hardback because I loved that cover. The trade cover sucks IMHO. I'll definitely be pre-ordering 'Company' to get it before the graphic abortionists of the publishing industry turn on it.

A friend just went me 'We Need To Talk About Kevin,' and he specifically sent it throught he U.K. publisher to spare me the U.S. cover which he thought was awful.

That donut is uglier. Not as classy as the previous one.
January 17 is quite late. People fresh with new Christmas presents of gift certificates for book stores will be out two weeks earlier.

I think the new doughnut is better (looks more real and has a nicer shadow).
Cant wait for it to come out, I just sent my library a "Suggested Purchase" so I can keep my booze money. :D

Late?
I'm glad it is in the first month of the year rather than the 6th!
Jan is good news i reckon.

Yes, the new donut is quite dumpy. I suppose it's another subtle aspect of satire?

I too hate hardcovers, at least in books that aren't gigantamongous. It'll look so out of place next to my copies of J. Gov. and Syrup.

I like the new donut. I think its cuter.

The new one looks more like the slightly dodgy bastardised versions spat out by Australian donut machines, rather than the tightly formed and mass-produced 6-sigma style from corporate America.
Not saying it IS, just that it looks like it in comparison to the last cover.

I'm not sure I like the new cover, even if it is rather similar. The old cover, everything was nice and perfect, while in the new one, the doughnut is, as Max said, soggy, and it has more frosting on it, which is a little distracting. But at least you can tell what it really is: a nasty doughnut pulled from the lunch room of some building, that might taste good, but doesn't look all that great.
But, hey, this is just the ranting of some kid whose's stayed up way too late, way too many nights in a row. I'm sure I'll grow to like the new cover, and therefor killing the perfectionist in me just a little more than the day before.

Have you got a british release date or will I have to get it on Amazon? I will if it doesn't come out whithin a week of the U.S release.

Hey, Congratulations! Must be nice to know a project is only a small stones-throw from completion. Of course, it begs the question: When will Australia actually get to see a copy of this book without its horrendous postage/import fees? :) (Preferably in Trade-Paperback please!)

What's the deal with all your book covers having food on them? Don't you know I'm a recovering foodaholic? You insensitive jerk!

I can't wait for your book to come out :)....

Will you have some books signed? Like a limited Edition?

Yay! Pre-order! *scurries off to Amazon*

You know, I'm actually going to have Company before I have Syrup. Recently I discovered that my dad ordered it a while ago and it just hording it here until my birthday, which is in March. Despite the fact that I figured out, he seems bent on keeping it, hoping I'll forget or something. Ha! Ah well. I'll just have to re-read JG again and again.

Looking forward to it! :-)

-Em

I think it looks a little bit nastier. Something that you might find in a box of doughnuts that has been sitting in the Employees lounge for two days...

That's what I see at least from my expieriance.

~Fritz

Nice to see things are finalized Max :) Can't wait to read it...oh, and I'm undecided on which donut I like better. Both have their pros and cons.

my comments are in the way of a blog post
http://bahahs.blogspot.com/2005/07/ode-to-mb-okay-heres-bottom-line.html
=)

I want to know which Doubleday employee got to take the bite out of the doughnut to make it look like the other picture. What an awesome job that would be.
And I like the new cover, but I still stick with my idea that something sexy or sinister would be more eye catching.
Have the doughnut pictured in a strip club, then people would buy it thinking it was a book about strippers, then BAM ... you'd hit them with a witty corporate satire. That'd be cool.

The new doughnut certainly looks more...realistic.

Do I hear some tour dates? Yes, yes, very good. More tours!

The newer doughnur looks rounder, but that's just me. Looking forward to reading the new book, BTW!

I was talking to the Dalai Lama about your new cover, he's really disappointed in it, perfering the fullness and structual integrity of the maple doughnut over the less delightfull, irregular glazed that looks rather stale.

The maple has more mass, and taste to it, making it that much more fulfilling; and he wonders if this change will negatively affect the sales of your book.

After telling me this, he sighed, and went back to meditating.

Dude, you got screwed. If you look closely, something else is missing from the cover that was one the first.... in the bitemark of the original, it said "A Novel".

It's no longer in the crappy doughnut cover... a mean, having those words in there zoomed your attention to that part of the cover, forcing an subconcious analysis, the birth of intrigue. I mean, just the sheer psychological force of the combination of the godly doughnut and the words handing from the crisp bitemark is enough to make an illiterate buy the book, but now you got that doughnut that's been sitting in the gutter for a week, all mushy and saggy (can't even reflect the tabletop surface like e heavenly one can) up the trying helplessly to catch the eye, and it has now identifier to signify it's a novel! What kind of crazy world do we live in, this is, this is, this is fuck'in bullshit. How can you stand for this!? This is not some hollywood remake, this is YOUR book, the original. This represents you, long after this website and your others crash, after you die and your grandchildren grow old. What are your great grandchildren, living on Io in the orbit of Jupiter 150 years from now are going to think of your book when they do a online search of ther last name and see your soggy doughnut come up? This is wrong, wrong I tell you! Aaaarrrraaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!

I wouldn't eat that donut if you paid me.

YAY COMPANY! I'll Tell my library to buy copies. They've got plenty of copies of Jennifer Government and Syrup, So I'm sure they'll buy quite a few copies of Company.

The doughnut in the old picture was a much prettier doughnut, but it looks a bit too much like a Krispy Kreme. (I dont know if they have them in Australia...) Exactly like a Krispy Kreme. The Other one just looks like a gas station doughnut. Plus it's ugly.
Airborne has it right. You're gettin ripped off. ; )

~EM!LY

pre-ordered it on saturday.
the only problem with pre-ordering is not being able to walk through Barnes and Noble holding and knowing i'm better than the people there to buy Schlock.

Every time I eat a donut now, I have to try to make it look like the "Company" donut.
Heh.

is it incredibly bad that i saw the first poster in this section and immediately had visions of our bald little prime minister sitting around posting on max barry's blog?

also, the new donut looks like someone licked all the icing off and then took a photo of it, which...kinda icky.

i want the old donut, damnit!!!

I actaully like the new cover better. Call me a Nutter ("You're a Nutter."), but the more crumbly icing makes the donut look more real, like it was actually handled, adn there isnt 'A Novel' in the bite mark. It just looks more professional this way. Even though, they were some seriously minor changes. But the Devil, is as they say, in the details.

Hey max, have you seen this cover -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/074757250X/qid=1123429605/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/026-5936391-8103658

holy crap, maybe thats why they changed the donut slightly. Dave, how the hell did you find that. Thats the same donut in the old "Company" cover. Crazy. Maybe they should re-do the cover completely, or not, whatever.

The coloring is off a little in that other picture, but everything else aligns up perfectly, blemishes and all.

Max, if I send you a copy of the book "The Hungry Years" by William Leith, will you sign it for me.... I really like that doughnut.

The shadow of the doughnut on the new cover just bugs me. I don't know what it is about it, but the feeling is definitely there.

Make them reshoot the donut. You have the power!!! This time make it a chocolate one.
Please?

Can't. Wait.

No, really.

I'm going to bug the school bookstore into ordering some. That way my parents will pay to feed my obsession.

As a designer I think the way to go max would be to make a more unique cover - more illustrative - tieing together the 2 ideas of Donut+Business. So maybe have the donut as a big office building, with lots of small people in a big long line in front going in to work. It could still be graphic. You could even modify the image you have and add a door, and someone in silhoutte walking in.

Max, you have to act now! Change it before it's too late, your entire career, your worth as a person, is ridding on this soggy doughnut!

Ok, I am having a paranoid moment right now, and one of the reasons is because I can't tell if I have an insight regarding the cover art, or if I instead (and more likely) have simply noticed something so obvious that no one else even considers it worth mentioning.

So, let me know, if you don't mind, with a few "Well, duh's", so I can relax.

The doughnut picture is a logotype for the abbreviation of the word "Company" (Co.).

Right?

That's what so cool about it, right? Surely THAT is the point the artist was trying to make, right?

Love it, it's perfect!