http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

due April 20!!

A quirky baseball player with a past shrouded in secrecy is the tragic hero of this macabre tale from the dark side of the all-American sport. In the voice of George Granny Grantham, retired third-base coach of the New Jersey Titans, King (Under the Dome) recalls the spring of 1957, when Billy Blakely, a catcher called up from the Titans' Iowa farm system, helped to boost the team out of the basement and add some excitement to the national pastime. Billy hits with such power and guards the plate with such determination (hence his eponymous nickname) that teammates are willing to forgive such eccentricities as his frequently addressing himself in the third person, or bloodying runners who collide with him. Of course, these kinks are clues to a shocking pathology that King coaxes out in a narrative steeped so perfectly in the argot of the game and the behavior of its players and fans that readers will willingly suspend their disbelief. As King's fiction goes, this suspenseful short is a deftly executed suicide squeeze, with sharp spikes hoisted high and aimed at the jugular on the slide home. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Already have mine pre-ordered.

That's funny. I just got an email from the publishers (Cemetary Dance) that it would not be available from Amazon, except from 3rd party sellers. If you want the book, go directly to cemetary dance's website.

Book sounds cool, but that is a really pompous blurb. "eponymous nickname"?

You seem to be correct. On the faq page it says that even though amazon may have it up for preorder. Cemetary Dance outright said amazon or other retailers won't have it for 1st or 2nd printings and are already over 50% been sold already. So if you want it, you should probably cancel and place an order at Cemetary Dance. Supposingly this is suppose to have a limited 1st printing.

This is from the mod at the stephen king forum.

I’ve been in touch with Cemetery Dance and this is the information I have received which will hopefully answer your questions about availability. At this time, the plan is that they will sell the first edition printing (approx. 10,000 copies) from their direct sales. If sales continue at the rate at which they have been the past few days, they do not anticipate that there will be many, if any, left over for distribution to other retailers. There will be a second printing which will be distributed to retail outlets and libraries but once those are gone, there are no plans for a third printing as the intent for this book was only to be a small print run. Chances are high that retailers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon will not be able to fill orders to meet the demand due to the limited supply available. This is something to consider if you are on the fence about ordering now and/or you would prefer to have a first edition/first printing. Also, only the orders placed with Cemetery Dance will have the baseball card “extra.”

The majority of the second printing will most likely be going to libraries and then the retailers. Barnes & Noble is already offering a big discount on their pre-orders, but I don't know if that will continue past the pre-order sales or if there will even be enough for them to offer copies at their local stores. Another factor in the pricing is that illustrated books are typically more expensive as there is the expense of paying the artist and the additional print production cost.

Looks like i better hurry and preorder at CD.

And now you can get a slipcase for it:

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_bbslip

Order a Limited Edition Slipcase for Your
1st Edition, 1st Printing of
Blockade Billy by Stephen King!

Very Limited Time Offer Won't Last Long!

Now that the world knows how truly limited and collectible our edition of Blockade Billy by Stephen King is, we're getting numerous emails from collectors asking if we can produce a custom slipcase to protect their book and their investment.

That was never in the plans, but we've spoken to our slipcase maker and we're going to make this happen. We will be able to produce a Limited Edition slipcase for the 1st Edition/1st Printing hardcover for an extremely limited time only. After that, NO MORE will ever be made.

We'll take orders for just ten days and then place our order with our manufacturer, so there will be no extras to sell later on. Order now or miss out! We will not be offering this again after the ten days is over.

So if 500 collectors order a slipcase, there will only ever be 500 copies of this Stephen King 1st Edition, 1st Printing hardcover with a slipcase!

The 1st Edition, 1st Printing hardcover with the Blockade Billy baseball card and the Limited Edition slipcase is going to be a must-have for the serious Stephen King collector. And if you're just starting a collection, there's no better way -- you'll never find a deal like this again!

We're only selling these slipcases for $16.95 plus shipping, making these Limited Edition slipcases an extremely affordable way to protect your book. We're using the same high-quality materials we use for our slipcases for our other Stephen King books, and the company who makes these for us is the best in the business. These slipcases will be produced after your book has shipped, so we'll ship the slipcases to you separately. Ordering a slipcase will NOT delay your book shipment.

Don't wait to place your order because these won't last long!

The book looks awesome, I hope they don't delay the kindle release like they did with Under the Dome.

Didn't know anything about this. Just ordered both the book and the slipcase. At $50 for both shipped, I'm already having buyers remorse given this is only a 144pp novella.

Looks like the 2nd Print from Amazon (May 25th) comes with a bonus short story.

Story sounds cool - I'll check it out.

"Eponymous" just means "giving the name"...so it's simply referring to using his nickname "Blockade Billy" as the title.

Where did you see that? My initial Amazon order was cancelled. Debating whether to get the 2nd edition on Amazon or the 1st edition on Cemetary Dance.

According to the official Stephen King website, the edition from Amazon is not a second printing of the Cemetery Dance version of the book. King and Cemetery Dance made arrangements with Scribner to publish a less expensive hardcover edition of the book. The Scribner release will include the short story "Morality". I'm pretty sure the short story was previously published in a magazine (Esquire, maybe?). The Cemetery Dance edition is shipping now. The Scribner version has a May 25 release date. The Cemetery Dance version comes with a baseball card. I'm not sure if there are any other differences (size, quality of cover or paper, etc.).

From Liljas Library:
Scribners version of Blockade Billy:

UPDATE: Stephen and Cemetery Dance have made an arrangement with Scribner to make available a less expensive hardcover edition of Blockade Billy, with an on-sale date of May 25th, the same date the audiobook goes on sale. The Scribner edition will be available in all U.S. and Canadian retail outlets. Both the Scribner book and the Simon & Schuster audiobook will feature a bonus short story ("Morality"). In the meantime, an eBook edition of Blockade Billy should go on sale through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony on April 20th.

Remember though that there ARE some difference between this edition and Cemetery Dance's 1st edition. The Cemetery Dance edition...

- has a very limited print run of just 10,000 copies
- is heavily illustrated unlike a standard New York edition
- is shrink-wrapped to protect the book
- includes the Limited Edition William "Blockade Billy" Blakely baseball card, which will never be reprinted
- is beautifully designed with both the collector and general reader in mind

The print run of Cemetery Dance's 1st Edition/1st Printing is about 1/100 of what King's New York publishers print for a new hardcover, making this easily the lowest print run of any new King trade edition since the 1970s!

"I'm thrilled that more readers will have a chance to read the story. Scribner will do a fantastic job getting this new edition in readers' hands. And I don't think it diminishes our edition one bit. We're the true first edition. We're the only illustrated edition. We're the only dust jacketed edition. We're the only edition that comes with the baseball card. The list goes on...."

Thanks for the thorough reply. I actually have that copy of Esquire already, so I think I'll opt for the CD version of Blockade Billy.

Mine shipped today!! Can't wait to get it! I ordered the limited edition slipcase too.

Actually doesn't eponymous mean "named after one's self"? So "eponymous nickname" just seems like an odd choice of phrase to me. Almost redundant.

In the article, they didn't say his nickname was "Blockade Billy"...it was just in the title. They used "eponymous" instead rather than repeating his nickname in the article too.

It's like calling a movie "Superman" and then in the writeup saying "the eponymous hero" which is just another way of saying "Superman".

Saying "hence his nickname" makes sense in the context of the article. Saying "hence his eponymous nickname" sounds ridiculous.

My copy arrived today. Can't wait for the slipcover to show up.

Finally got mine a few days ago. $6 shipping for a bubble envelope and media mail for a limited first edition? tsk...tsk... I thought I was dealing with a real company not an ebay dealer.

Just read this in one of the Amazon Reviews:

I've already read BLOCKADE BILLY (via Kindle)...it's a short story and not a full-blown book, in case you don't already know.

I found it disappointing. Well written, as most of King's work is, but totally predictable...I almost wonder if this is something he wrote long ago and just recently touched it up for publication. Most of you will be able to read it in one or two sittings.

Small presses like Cemetery Dance often do this -- they get a big name author to give them a novella, publish it in a limited edition, and then use the money to offset books by lesser known authors who don't sell as well.

Got it from Amazon yesterday, read it today. I enjoyed it, along with it being told by the coach's point of view.