U2-A Diary

It’s obvious by now that the 2nd edition of U2-A Diary didn’t come out in July as originally planned. To those of you who pre-ordered early on and have been waiting — I’m very sorry. If there was something I could have done to get the book out on that original schedule, I would’ve done it.

From what I understand (which isn’t much), the book has been delayed because of printing and print-related cost concerns (i.e., higher cost of the heavy paper stock that the publisher used on the 1st edition and things like that). That said, I’m finally able to report some news about the book — some good and some bad.

The Good News

The second edition is back on schedule and should be available sometime in November/December. You’ll note that the Amazon UK page shows the release date as November 30. I don’t know if that’s perfectly reliable, but hopefully it’ll begin to ship around that time.

The Bad News

As of this moment, the second edition has not been picked up outside of the UK. The word from my editor is as follows:

As yet our US distributors have not ordered any copies of the new edition because they have unsold copies of the old edition. This may change but I am not in a position to force them to order it – unfortunately.

So, if you want to get the second edition right away, it seems like you’ll have to order it from Amazon.co.uk or whatever UK-based bookstore you prefer.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

This Is Important, Too

If you click the link above to visit the book’s page on Amazon UK, you’ll see a cover image that looks similar to the original book, but with more purpley designs:

As you see in the text I added, that’s NOT what the second edition is going to look like. Actually, it’s going to look like just like the first edition. It’ll have the same exact cover, but with a sticker (or something similar) that says “2nd Edition” or “Updated Edition” or something along those lines.

So, please don’t be surprised/angry when the book that you’ve ordered arrives and doesn’t look like what Amazon UK is showing. We’ve tried to get them to change the cover back, but it’s apparently not easy to do.

Needless to say, I’ll post new updates as I get any more information. But for now, the main points are:

1. UK sales only for the second edition.
2. The cover shown on Amazon UK is NOT what you’ll be getting.

This is quite an honor for me to see:

That photo is from the 4th annual Always Remember Gala hosted last month in New York City by an organization I love called Voices of September 11th. The event included a fund raiser, and I was honored to offer a signed copy of the 2nd edition of U2-A Diary as one of the silent auction items. I don’t know yet who the high bidder was, but when the 2nd edition is available — which should be soon! — I’ll sign a copy and send it to him/her.

BTW, the organization is raising money for a 9/11 “living memorial” and I’ve written more about that on my personal blog, so please check that out for more information about what this amazing group is doing.

Just passing along some good news from Omnibus Press: When the updated version of U2-A Diary comes out later this year, it will also be released in two new countries!

Translations are planned in both Portugal and Serbia. I don’t know when they’ll be available, though. The English-language book is being targeted for release in July. I don’t know if the translations will be ready at the same time, or some time later in the year. If I find out more, I’ll certainly share the news.

The first edition of U2-A Diary was translated into Japanese and Croatian. (If you missed it before, I explained a couple years ago how international translations work.)

(map image via Shutterstock)

If you’re a big iPad user, or iBooks reader on your iPhone, you may already know this. Me? I just discovered tonight that U2 – A Diary is available in Apple’s iBooks store. The cost is $14.99, which is probably a little higher than I’d expect — but less than the “new” price at most places that are selling the print version.

The iBooks store offers a sample, too, which can be downloaded for free. (see it above in my library) The sample is the start of the book up through about page 24, which tells the story from the beginning (195) up until late 1979. It’s a pretty good sample of material, but it’s a bit light on images.

So … if you haven’t read the book yet, or if you’ve read it but you also want a digital copy for your iPad or iPhone … check it out in the iBooks store. And let me know what you think about reading digital copies of books.

Here are a couple pages of the sample.

I’m super-thrilled to announce that Omnibus Press will be publishing an updated, second edition of U2 – A Diary next year! This is all very much “hot off the press,” so I don’t have a ton of details yet, but here’s what I do know:

• We’re aiming to publish in mid-2011.
• The new edition will add three years of material: 2008 through 2010. (My deadline is end of January.)
• We’ll be asking U2 fans to contribute great photos for possible inclusion in the book, just as we did with the first edition.
• The second edition will include an addendum in the back with corrections and new entries that cover the 1950 to 2007 timeframe of the first book.

That’s about all I know at the moment. I’ve already updated this blog — you can check out the links above for more information, especially the FAQS page where I explain why we’re doing an update only three years after the first book was published. (Basically, because they’re running out of stock of the first book and, rather than re-print thousands of copies of a three-year-old book, it makes more sense to update the book and print those.)

I’ll be posting more frequently here on the blog over the next three months with progress updates and specific calls for help. I’ll be looking for help with:

• identifying errors/typos in the first book that need to be corrected
• identifying dates and events that were left out of the first book and should be added
• solving some of the unsolved mysteries that still remain from the first book
• photo contributions
• etc.

So, please, if you’re interested in following along, feel free to bookmark this site or just subscribe to the RSS feed. And thanks in advance for your help, support, or interest!