Neil Gaiman's Indie Halloween Party Plan

Last Friday, on his blog, Neil Gaiman's Journal, the winner of the 2009 Indies Choice Book Award for Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (The Graveyard Book, HarperCollins) offered more details on the contest he announced, to the surprise of his publisher, at ABA's Celebration of Bookselling. Gaiman came up with the Halloween Party Plan in response to the many independent booksellers across the country who would love to host Graveyard Book signings in their stores. There are so many, he said, he couldn't possibly accommodate them all.

On his blog, Gaiman outlined some of details of the contest open to bookstores in the U.S. and Canada: "It's open to independent bookshops. I'm not going to try and define indies for this. Big chains (Borders, B&N, Chapters, etc.) are out, because you're much more likely to get me anyway when a book comes out. But this one goes from tiny one-person independent bookshops a long way from anywhere up to huge monstrous shops that occupy city blocks. What counts is Independence (and, for the competition, enthusiasm)."

The in-store Halloween Party, themed around The Graveyard Book, can be held anytime in October, and just how a store does it is entirely open, said Gaiman, who did, however, offer some tips: "Decorate with headstones, or give awards to people who come as characters from the book, or have competitions for making epitaphs, or make graves of cake, or ... well, honestly, this is your call. It's your Graveyard Book party."

Booksellers can document the party with photos and/or video, said Gaiman, and HarperCollins will be the judge. (Details of how and to whom documentation should be sent will be posted closer to the event.)

The winner will be announced no later than November 15, Gaiman said, and "then, in December 2009, I'll turn up on a mutually-agreed day, pens at the ready, to do a reading and an Odd and the Frost Giants signing for the winning store. The ten runners-up will get signed posters and books and stuff."

To sum up, he said, "I'll ask HarperChildren's to do a slightly more officially approved version of this, but that's the plan."

Read more about Halloween party plan on Neil Gaiman's Journal (see the entry for Friday, June 12).