Author's note in the International excerpt

I placed an author's note in the International version of The Tea Master excerpt -- which is the only difference. So that Americans don't feel the impulse to download both for completeness, I'm posting the note here:

Author’s note:

As of just after midnight, on March 19, 2009, Amazon.com is still not allowing “interational” readers to download and rate the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinalists. This is a big problem for me because I’m Canadian, and a lot of the people I would call on to promote The Tea Master are Canadian. I hope they’ll fix this, but, in the meantime I decided I could host my own download, solicit comments on my own blog, and have my American-based husband John post those comments to Amazon for me. International readers CAN still rate The Tea Master at the Amazon link, so please rate there and comment at my blog.

The Tea Master represents four years’ hard work plus nearly another year of fruitlessly trying to get notice from the publishing industry. This is not an unusual situation or a reflection on the quality of my writing; recent New York Times bestseller Water for Elephants was rejected seventy-eight times before it found a home at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. William Kennedy o’Toole killed himself after ‘only’ sixteen rejections of Confederacy of Dunces, which subsequently won the Pulitzer.

The publishing industry is based on a 400 year old model and it is falling apart. The Tea Master has already beaten nearly ten thousand other books to get this far, which shows something about the situation of the dozens of agents who told me it was good, but that they didn’t know how to find the market for it. If you have ever enjoyed my work in the past, the market is you, and the best way to say that, is to say it. If you’re American (what are you doing reading this, you should be getting the official excerpt!) please download it from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG39TM

and post a review there. If you’re not, post your review as a comment at:

http://fille.camilledumas.com/

Be as brief or as detailed as you want with your written review.

I have never been in good health. Writing books is the only thing I am good for, and I must find a way to bypass the publishing industry’s old-fashioned, decaying methodologies. Penguin has shown itself future-sighted in sponsoring this contest, and the more attention I get, the more likely I’ll find commercial recognition whether or not I win. This means the difference between whether or not I continue to struggle in poverty, illness and obscurity, and whether you are able to lie back next summer with a glass of iced tea and a copy of The Tea Master… or even my next book, Common Wealth. Would that all our ethical choices were so simple: for only a few minutes of your time, you can save me from the situation of Warren’s wife Mira, who was fired from the Jerry Springer Show, for ‘creative differences’.

Camille Dumas, March 19, 2009

(That’s: Camille Dumas / Gabrielle Taylor / Antoinette / Satin /
Gabrielle Barrett / Camille Vanessa Johnson-Taylor-Nickles /
Auntie Dynamite, from Holistic Artists, Pandemonium! Online,
The Net Net, computerpages, the Northwest Comic News,
Pulp Culture, Moonfarmer, Mascaret, Clean Shopper, Shiny Shiny,
Tech Digest, Hippyshopper, and beyond)