As many of you know, I've spent the better part of the last two years working on a biography of Rod Serling, the creator and host of The Twilight Zone and one of the most significant writers in the history of television.
The manuscript is in final edits as I write this, and I'm excited to reveal the cover to what we ultimately called Serling: A Journey Into The Twilight Zone With TV's First Visionary:
In addition to telling the story of his life and career, the book features plenty of analysis of what was great about Twilight Zone great, as well as Serling's live teleplays from the Fifties (when he was essentially Aaron Sorkin before Aaron Sorkin), and much of his other work in film (Planet of the Apes) and television (Rod Serling's Night Gallery). Some of this commentary is by your friendly neighborhood TV critic, and some is from the many, many, many storytellers who have been influenced by his work: Guillermo del Toro, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Vince Gilligan, David Chase, Ben Stiller, Jane Schoenbrun, Nia DaCosta, Rob Mac, Pamela Adlon, to name just a few. I talked to a lot of people for this, in addition to combing through archival quotes from Serling, his colleagues and friends, as well as some modern filmmakers (like Jordan Peele) who were unavailable while I was working on the book, but who had insightful thoughts on Rod's work and how it inspired what they do. Suffice it to say, Serling's work had a seismic impact on television, film, and other forms of popular culture. The book is as much about that as it is about exploring the many ways that his writing was influenced by the colorful life he led.
The book has a cover. It has a title. And it and has an official release date: October 13 of this year. All those details mean Serling is now available to pre-order. Pre-orders have become increasingly important in the publishing game. Pre-orders let retailers know that there's demand for the product, so that they have plenty of available copies when they're actually published. (On a couple of occasions, both online and brick-and-mortar stores ran out of my books during publication week — one on publication day — because they underestimated the demand.) They also play a big role in whether a book winds up on bestseller lists, which in turn makes the book more visible to people who might not have otherwise heard of it. And it helps with marketing in other ways that are too boring to get into here.
So if you're interested and have the means, I would greatly appreciate you purchasing sooner rather than waiting until October. Grand Central Publishing has a product page featuring links to all the major online stores:
Alan Sepinwall
To save you some time, here are the individual links, starting with Bookshop:
Alan Sepinwall
Amazon:
From the Author
Target:
Walmart:
Alan Sepinwall
For some reason, Ghost won't expand the links for Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million like the ones above, but you can just click on them. There's also Powell's, among others. If you prefer to buy directly from indie bookstores, rather than through Bookshop, you can find your local at IndieBound and contact them.
These are all American retailers. As with most of my books, it will be available internationally, but I don't have control or knowledge of the schedule for that. In Canada, both Indigo and Amazon.ca are already taking pre-orders, for instance, but Amazon in the UK has it listed as unavailable. If you're an international reader, I would suggest contacting stores near you to find out what they know.
This will either my seventh or eighth book, depending on how we're classifying Stop Being a Hater and Learn to Love The O.C. It's unlike any I've written before. I'm incredibly proud of how it turned out. I hope you give it a shot, and I appreciate your continued support.
