Is My Book Just a Figment of My Imagination?

For a long time, my book felt very … imaginary. Yes, I had a draft in my laptop. Yes, I sent long documents to my editor. But was anything really going to be published as a book? I’ve felt this way with all my books—it always seems like a miracle when a real, actual book is in my hands.

Well, now I’m experiencing the next-best thing to grabbing hold of my physical book. The Happiness Project exists on Amazon! There’s a link, you can pre-order it now (and please do). I’m taking a minute to Embrace a milestone moment .

Now, this link doesn’t boast anything fancy. You can’t see the cover, because I don’t have cover art yet. You can’t see any fun facts—like “statistically improbable phrases” or “number of words” or “fog index”—because the book doesn’t actually exist in the system anywhere. But that link , primitive as it is, is there. The book feels real .

Also, if you’ve been awake nights wondering what my subtitle should be—I know I’ve laid awake nights, thinking about the subtitle—now all is revealed.

Blatant self-promotion alert : If you’re thinking about buying my book, please consider pre-ordering it. A book gets a big boost from pre-orders, because that early support shows that people really are enthusiastic. It’s early, I know, because the book won’t actually be available for several months. But I’ve ordered my copy! And that made me very happy.

* In the news this weekend, I saw that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant—and someone told me that Natasha Richardson’s family donated her organs. Have you signed up to be an organ donor ? Or told your family that you’d like to be a donor, if that situation arose? If you support the idea of donation, live your values. Putting your values in action is always a happiness booster.

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.