Jupiter Is Back (or, A New Book! Sort Of)

I'm publishing a new book! Well, in a way. Here. First, check out the new teaser site for Enemies:

Ready? OK. So here's the story.

Last year, an editor named Liz Miles asked me if I'd ever written any stories that were a little funny and a little edgy. Hey, I said, I do edgy for a living.

A few months before, my awesome agent-at-the-time, Suzie Townsend, had sent around my manuscript for Enemies. It wasn't a direct sequel to Losers, my last book, but it had the same lovable Russian hacker/geek/girl-anti-magnet, Jupiter Glazer. She'd tried to sell it with remarkably little success. Most publishers were reticent. The few candid ones told a remarkably depressing story: They weren't buying books for teenage boys. Most Young Adult (marketspeak for "teen") fiction was selling to girls. Guys were either buying adult books, or they weren't buying anything.

I took a chance. I sent Liz the first chapter. She liked it.

And now it's the first story in her new anthology, Truth & Dare, which is coming out next month in the US (but which is available on Amazon now!) and also in the UK with a much bubblier Britpop cover.

  
butwaitthere'smore...
So that's just the beginning. Chapter 2 is going to be published in Apiary this spring. And the other chapters are going to be pouring out, bit by bit -- five chapters are in upcoming anthologies. One is already out. It's sort of like a scavenger hunt, except that we're all on the same page.
Thanks for reading this! And, hey, thanks for paying attention to Jupiter and to me in the first place. You rock the rock.
(And one more thing: if this isn't too desperate a plea, please like the Enemies page on Facebook! And send the page around to everyone you know! It's pretty easy, http://bit.ly/heyjupiter. I know it's ridiculous to hope that, if a million people click "like," then Scholastic or someone will publish it. But I'm a ridiculously hopeful person.)