It’s here! Steelheart is out!

The trailer is here, if you haven’t seen it. Also, if you live in Utah, please come see me tonight at the Orem Barnes & Noble! 5–8:00 p.m., with signed and numbered copies. Yesterday I talked about the tour and the Steelhunt I’m doing along with it.

Now, I’ve got to admit something to you all. I might have made a bit of a rash bet regarding this book.

When I was looking for a publisher for Steelheart, one of the first things I did was call my friend (and sometimes rival) James Dashner. He had been publishing with Delacorte, a Random House imprint, and he mentioned how much he loved his editor there. I asked him to give me an introduction.

In the end, I ended up going with his editor Krista Marino for the book. (The team at Delacorte really impressed me.) This meant that Dashner and I were now with the same editor and publisher. We started doing some publicity interviews together, as he’s launching a new series in the next few weeks as well: The Eye of Minds comes out on October 8th.

One thing led to another, and during one of our taped interviews, I kind of ended up making a friendly wager with him based on whose book sold the most its opening week. The loser has to, ahem, change his Facebook and other social media pictures into images of Justin Bieber.

Now, I’m not 100% sure who Justin Bieber is—only that tween girls really seem to like him and he tends to wear very strange pants. I’m sure he’s a nice guy with nice music. I’m also sure my Facebook page will look remarkably silly as a Justin Bieber fan page.

I’m also reasonably certain this is going to backfire on me, as a lot of my fans are probably very eager to see me have to do this. However, for the sake of my pride, don’t let it keep you from looking into the book today.

In all seriousness, a book’s first-week sales are one of the most important litmus tests the industry uses to determine success. Up-front sales will encourage more reorders from bookstores and help a lot with book placement. So if you’re considering Steelheart, it would mean a lot to me if you’d drop by your local bookstore this week and check it out. Give the prologue and first few chapters a browse (or listen to the Audible preview below); I think you’ll like what you see.

Anyway, this bet with Dashner is actually a real thing. Our editor gets to choose the pictures of Bieber we have to use if we lose. Though many of you might not realize it, I am quite the underdog in this contest. Dashner’s Maze Runner books have a film coming out early next year, and his books sell a lot of copies. Let’s give him a run for his money, though, and see how many we can sell of Steelheart opening week. I’m counting on you, guys!

So if thinking of me being forced to become Bieber makes you laugh, please consider how much more funny it would be if Dashner had to do it.

I’ll be back in the coming days with some fun blog posts, as well as some spotlights on the various editions of Steelheart out there. (A few of the retailers have editions you can find that have an extra art page or the like inside.)

Brandon