Okay, it’s another month away. But on February 1st, I’ll be spending the first day of the Chinese New Year flying to Taiwan to celebrate with my publisher, Nautilus Press, and do some book promoting. What will we be celebrating? Well, I just found out the following today, so my palms are still a bit sweaty, and I only feel like I can brag because this wasn’t my doing at all. Eric Chen, who founded Nautilus Press, translated the book himself. He’s a phenomenal writer, and I can only imagine his text improves upon my own. How else to explain the following email from my agent, Gray Tan:
As 2013 comes to a close, I’m thrilled to report that WOOL has officially become THE bestselling new foreign novel in Taiwan of the year. See the lists below:
Eslite Books:
– #1 in the Foreign Literature & Fiction category (of the whole year)
– #4 overall and outsells any other fiction titles (#1-#3 are all non-fiction)
– 28 weeks on the bestseller list (including 12 weeks at #1) has never fell out of top 10.
Kingstone Books:
– #9 in the Fiction & Literature category (of the whole year), behind EL James, Dan Brown and Rick Riordan
– Chosen as one of the Ten Most Influential Books of the Year, and the only translated novel on the list (there’s another novel but by Taiwanese author, and eight non-fiction titles).
Books.com
– #11 in Foreign Fiction category (of the whole year), #7 if you count only titles published in 2013.
– 28 weeks on the Literature & Fiction bestseller list (highest at #4).
The e-book edition came out earlier this week and has not left the top 20 overall bestseller list and is the #1 bestselling foreign novel.
19 titles cover the Top 10 bestsellers of the year of all three major chains, 9 of them are fiction, 8 of them translation, they are two Fifty Shades, Dan Brown’s INFERNO, Keigo Higashino’s new novel, Yann Martel’s LIFE OF PI, Rick Riordan’s THE HOUSE OF HADES. All are books by repeat bestsellers. WOOL is the only debut.
Holy moly. Unbelievable. So thankful for the awesome work Nautilus has done. Really hope I’m not the literary version of Sugar Man in Taiwan, and they have legends over there of me being beaten to death on stage with a typewriter.
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