Thanks to Fred Hicks at the Indie Press Revolution booth agreeing to handle the Gen Con sales of our new book, Things We Think About Games, we enjoyed a terrific launch over the past two weeks. I’m told the book was a “top seller” at Gen Con. I shipped a stack of books taller than I could’ve hoped last week, to fulfill direct orders through the site here. And we’ve just sent a shipment off that’ll soon make the book available at Amazon, too.

We’ll be experiencing some delays fulfilling immediate orders because, oh yes, we’ve sold out of our initial (modest) print run. (A new volley of copies is inbound even now, however, so we expect to be shipping books again in a few days.)

This is big news for us. We couldn’t be sure, when we put this book together, that there would be an interest in something like it. To those of you who have brought the book into your homes and bookshelves, thank you so much.

Thanks, too, to those of you who have taken the time to mention the book in your blogs and journals, who have reviewed the book, who have mentioned it to your friends, who passed it around at Gen Con like a yearbook, and who signed it like a yearbook.

Did you hear about that? No? Then let’s run down some of the things being said about Things We Think on the Internet.

• Take a look at designer Rob Donoghue’s Livejournal for a look at the copy of Things We Think About Games that he passed around as an autograph book at Gen Con. This fabled copy is even en route to me, here in the Deep South, so I can sign it and hug it and kiss it on the mouth. If you signed this copy at Gen Con, let us know if you’re willing to let us share your signature and note here on the site. I expect to take pictures and do some transcriptions, if you’re game.
• For me, Gen Con was a vicarious affair, observed without any Heisenbergian impact, through the theater of the Internet. This makes efforts like Jason Morningstar’s “One Cool Thing I Saw At Gen Con” especially nourishing for a bloke like me. Somewhere around the 8:43 mark you’ll find Rob Donoghue doing more stellar (and free!) PR for the book. Bless you, Rob.
• If that was nourishing, then the Paul Tevis and Ryan Macklin podcast, “This Just In From Gen Con”, was like oxygen for me. I was, as they say, the target audience: the regretful didn’t-make-it-this-year-dammit homebody. Lots of admirable folks mentioned Things We Think About Games over the course of the show’s eleven episodes (including Jeff), but none of them so often, it seems, as co-host Macklin, about whom see more ten pixels down from here.
• If you haven’t, check out Ryan Macklin’s analysis and rebuttal of several of the book’s many Things. This is the book in action, as it was intended, provoking follow-up posts, supportive or retaliatory. Keep it up, Ryan. Your thoughts on the book are fascinating and provocative, all on their own.
• A few of our regular visitors have dug into the book on their own blogs. Check out Jack Phillips’ commentary on the book, over at his richly exploratory blog, Philosophy of Games. Then, see what regular GPW commentator Jason Dettman says over at his blog, Deconstructing Infinity.
• Literary bloodhound and PR guru Matt Staggs mentioned the book at his tentacular all-things-publishing blog, Enter the Octopus. Thanks, Matt!
• Horror news and review site Flames Rising called it “[a]n all-around great read by some of the most interesting folks in the industry.” The folks at Flames Rising have been writing thoughtful reviews and interviews for a long time, and ever since my White Wolf days they’ve been a crew whose opinions I’ve respected, so it’s something of a relief that they liked the book.
• Pyramid‘s Matthew Pook said: “It should be read by every gamer. A good gamer, though, will read it more than once.” That’s pretty rad.

So far, it’s been a treat sharing the book with you. Got a review of your own? Got a Thing you particularly want to rebut or back up? We’d love to hear from you.

Don’t have the book yet? More copies will be here, ready to ship, later this week. Get one.

Cheers.