The debut of Major League Debuts

I have news about a new release, but it might not be the new release you were expecting. This Is Who We Are Now is still waiting its turn. It was set aside in the fall for a more time-sensitive project. From September up to now all of my time, spare and otherwise, has been dedicated to the new one. It's called Major League Debuts, and it is out now. And unlike my previous releases, this is very much not a novel.

But there are stories. Three hundred and three of them, to be precise. Major League Debuts is a book about all of the players to debut in the big leagues in 2022. Which turned out to be a record 303 of them. The previous record, set way back in 2021, was 265. That would have been a little easier. Because for each of the 303, I wrote about their first game in the majors, what they did in 2022, and how they got there, with a detailed bio of their career, starting from high school in many cases. I subscribed to 40 newspapers to do the research. I didn't sleep a whole lot. But I got there, and I'm really happy with the way it came out.

Originally, in my head, this book would have been available closer to Jan. 1. Then again, originally it wasn't going to be this long. Or this insanely detailed. When I started in September, the writeups were 300-400 words per player. By the time I finished, it was a challenge to keep them under 1,000. I had to circle back to the guys at the start of the alphabet and beef them up to even things out a little.

The book came out to be 416 pages in paperback. It blows my mind more than a little that I wrote more than 400 pages worth of words in under five months. I honestly have never worked so hard on anything in my life. Novels are hard in a different way, but spread out over a much longer period of time, which makes it less intense, at least the way I write. I needed this book out before spring training started.

I made it.

And now, in some ways, comes the hard part. Selling it. That's no different than for all of my other books. Selling them is always harder than writing them. If you're interested in baseball, or know someone who is, the book is available in both paperback and ebook format.

Paperback - $17.95

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT9CVZZG/

Ebook - $7.99

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWB4X51 
BN.com: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/major-league-debuts-james-bailey/1142978517
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/major-league-debuts

And if baseball's not really your thing, stay tuned for updates on This Is Who We Are Now. It will soon be moving back to the front burner.