Dear backers,

Hopefully by now, you've all received your copies of "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside." Thank you so much to everyone who has been posting about it online (please check out the collage I put together below), especially Bailey, Tiffany, Galen, Corey, Elmer, Laura, Julian, Julie, Ollie and Alexandra. Oh yeah, and my mom. She has been repping the book HARD. Thanks, Mom!

I hope you're all as pleased as I am with how the book turned out. After all, it's your support that made this possible. I'd also like to take this as an opportunity to recognize the teams at Inkshares and Girl Friday Productions, who've been working tirelessly over the past several months to ensure you receive such a beautiful finished product. This experience has been a true team effort, and after 4+ years of writing, that's a great feeling.

Moving on, I have a few exciting pieces of news to share with you. First, I have confirmed a reading at The Tattered Cover (Colfax Avenue location) in Denver, CO on January 14th at 7pm. Big thanks to Andrew Fink and the Langer family for helping make that happen. You can find a link to the Facebook invitation here. I'd love to see you there, but if you don't live in the area, it'd be awesome if you could mention it to anyone who does. As a reminder, I'm also going to be hosting readings/parties in Oakland and Boston over the next month. Stop by my website (www.quincycarroll.com) for details.

Next, Tony D'Souza, author of "Whiteman," a highly-acclaimed novel similar in theme and subject matter to mine (only set in Western Africa) has agreed to take a look at the book. I'd strongly encourage anyone who enjoys #upMdownC to check it out. Adam Granofsky, lead singer of The War on Drugs (and a fellow alumnus of The One True School), has expressed interest, too. There's no guarantee that they'll like the book (or even read it), but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited. Fingers crossed.

Barring any celebrity endorsements, I am counting on word of mouth to help publicize this novel. That's why I'd really appreciate it if you could post a short, honest review of the book once you're finished reading it. It doesn't have to be 5 stars (although that would be ideal). I want to thank Rector, Mark, Pete, Lauren, Gaynor, Hathaway, Jason, Spiro and Beidi (and Mom) for doing this already. We sent out copies of the book to interested media outlets last week, so it's great that there are already a few reviews posted on Goodreads and Amazon in case they look it up online. The book jumped 20,000 spots on Amazon over the weekend!

And last but not least, Inkshares is running a promotional giveaway on Goodreads. Twenty copies are up for grabs, so if you know anyone who uses the website, let them know! Here is a link to the contest. If you're a Zhongguotong and want to run your own competition to get your extra copies out there, that would be great, too. Try to think of who might embrace the novel most in your immediate social/professional circles. THANKS!

Quincy