Lin.

As the foremost chronicler of the young novelist Tao Lin's every whim, The Observer was hoping we might break the story of Tao Lin's next book deal, which he announced he was shopping a couple weeks back. Then, on a Sunday when our moods were already dampened by incessant rain and the looming prospect of Monday, Mr. Lin wrote to inform us that we had lost the story to Mike Vilensky at The Wall Street Journal. So he granted us an interview.

"Mike 'scooped' the news via Clegg himself," read the e-mail from Mr. Lin we received in our inbox as Sunday turned into Monday, The Wall Street Journal went to the presses, and the rain thundered down. "Clegg" is Bill Clegg, Mr. Lin's agent at William Morris Endeavor. The announcement can be found here. The novel, entitled Taipei, Taiwan, will be released as a paperback on Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

"Vintage/Knopf publishes most of my favorite writers: Lorrie Moore, Ann Beattie, Bret Easton Ellis," Mr. Lin told WSJ. And now Tao Lin.

So here is some stuff that is not in The Wall Street Journal: The book was sold for $50,000 with a $10,000 bonus if it earns out its advance, with one-third up front, one-third upon delivery of the manuscript and one-third upon publication in the U.S. and Canada. The proposal consisted of a 5000-word excerpt and a ~3-page outline. The other houses that made offers were Harper Perennial and Little, Brown. Tim O'Connell, who is an associate editor at Vintage and Anchor Books, will edit Mr. Lin. Mr. O'Connell was described by his new author as a "prolific Tweeter." Mr. O'Connell has Tweeted four times since March 2010.

Here is the rest of our exchange with Mr. Lin:

NYO: Did you get to go to meetings at the publishing houses?

TL: Yes, I met with 4 editors.

NYO: Who has the nicest office?

TL: Bloomsbury had the bleakest office, in my view. The other offices were all really nice.

NYO: Did Tim make the highest offer or was he the editor (and Vintage the publisher) you liked best?

TL: I liked everyone. Vintage didn't make the highest offer. I liked them best, based on a number of factors and with Bill's input.

NYO: Did you meet Sonny Mehta?

TL: I did not, but Tim and I talked about him. Tim spoke to him a number of times. Sonny had asked Tim which book by me he should read and Tim had said "Richard Yates," so Sonny may have read some or all of "Richard Yates."

NYO: Were you counseled against putting out a book proposal when everyone is on vacation (did they say "wait until September" or did you have to talk with any editors on Martha's Vineyard)?

TL: Everyone seemed very available, but I think mostly because of Bill's influence and enthusiasm. Bill highly exceeded my expectations at what an agent does or could do.

NYO: Do you feel now like you've "made it"?

TL: I honestly feel, to a large degree, like me and everyone else are close to death and that the awareness of this has, to me, precluded thoughts of "making it" (this is a theme of the novel).

But as she settles into her new job title, she's also preparing to promote her next book, How Did You Get This Number, out June 15.

How will she manage?

Well, Crosley told us, she'll be going "on vacation" for two weeks in June, during which period she will undertake a 10-city book tour.

It's a funny trade-off: "When most authors go on vacation, they don't become book publicists," she said. Philip Roth does not start sending out galleys when he wants a break from writing, she added.

True. We guess Philip Roth is kind of slacking in that regard.

“Once you’re in, it’s really team Ladies Lotto: Everyone’s always helping each other out and hooking each other up,” Ms. Weinert said. “I really wanted to get some different minds in the mix, and not just have the same kind of meetings about it as always.”

Ms. Weinert had already posted a video trailer for Undiscovered Gyrl, set up a Facebook account for its narrator, and started a Twitter feed by the time she reached out to Ladies Lotto. But she had something a little more elaborate in mind: She wanted a “multi-tiered social networking approach” that would amount to “the biggest online campaign that Vintage has done yet.”

The women on the Ladies Lotto list, according to the organization’s founder, Natalie Blacker, all work in various creative industries. Some are in fashion, some are in the music industry, while others are writers, designers, etc. Ms. Blacker founded the group three years ago, after realizing there was no forum for women “who are culture creators to get together and shmooze."

Those women, according to Ms. Weinert, are the ideal audience for Undiscovered Gyrl, which she called “a very literary, fast-paced coming-of-age story” that is equal parts Go Ask Alice and Twin Peaks. Written by the improbably male Allison Burnett, Ms. Weinert said, the novel keeps readers guessing as to the identity of its narrator by “putting traditional point of view on its head and playing around with the major identity issues of our age.”

And so, after talking it through with Ms. Blacker, Ms. Weinert decided to host what is known in Ladies Lotto parlance as a “LLab,” a two-hour seminar to be held this coming Tuesday in a conference room in the Random House building. Dubbed “Publicity 2.0.,” the Llab was pitched to Ladies Lotto members as an opportunity to “get involved with the viral marketing” of Undiscovered Gyrl “from start to finish.” For just $5, participants would receive an advance copy of the book and offered the opportunity to come up with ideas about how it can be made into an online sensation.

“Besides a good read,” read the announcement on the official Ladies Lotto blog, “what you'll get in return—if you attend the LLab and corresponding workshops—is immeasurable; experience at one of the most respected publishing houses in the world. What we're doing is unprecedented and your participation will be a valuable part of your portfolio.”

“Ladies, don't miss out on this amazing opportunity,” it went on. “Also, anyone who posts an advance review of UNDISCOVERED GYRL online gets a free finished copy!”

“It’s sort of like a mini-internship,” Ms. Weinert explained. “They’re going to get to work with the top publisher in the world, and learn how a book is published from start to finish and have an instrumental role in how it’s marketed. They’ll make invaluable contacts and learn a lot.”

The Llab on Tuesday night, Ms. Weinert said, will take the form of a brainstorming session.

“I’m going to leave it up to them,” Ms. Weinert said. “I’m really excited to see what they come up with. I want to utilize their creative juices and their ideas and come up with an approach together.”

She added, “I want to give them a great experience and empower them. It’s an incredibly important moment in publishing right now to reach out and see what people in other industries are doing.”

Those who attend the seminar on Tuesday are expected to stay involved throughout Undiscovered Gyrl’s publication, and help out with the promotional effort by using their own blogs and Web presence to stir interest in the book. 

“They’re going to have a lot of work to do!” Ms. Weinert said. “They have to go into the field and do some viral marketing for us. I want them to be very active online, interacting with our Web site, our Facebook account, our MySpace, our Twitter. I want them to be involved in the online campaign, writing customer reviews and posting things.”

That process, Ms. Weinert said, has already started, as one of the women who was in the trailer video “took it upon herself to write a fantastic review of the book on her blog.”

Mr. Burnett, the author, is “extremely excited about this campaign,” Ms. Weinert said, and plans to help the Ladies as they spread the word about his book.

“He’ll do Q&A’s with them,” she said. “He’ll interact with them, he’ll blog with them. He’ll be available to them.”

“This is a real people’s campaign,” Ms. Weinert said. “The days of just sending out books and getting reviews and selling them are just pretty over.”

The news about Netherland was only the latest entry in what has become a tradition of reporting on and analyzing the president’s reading habits. During the campaign, he was famously photographed looking fly and holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World. More recently, he was seen leaving his home in Chicago holding Fred Kaplan’s Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, and during a post-election interview on 60 Minutes said obliquely that he’d been reading a book about F.D.R.’s first 100 days in office. That reference set off a flurry of hopeful speculation among several publishing houses that had recently issued books that fit Obama’s description, and each of them hoped upon hearing about the comment that the president-elect had been talking about theirs. The roller coaster of emotions endured by all those involved was described in a New York Times piece headlined, For Books, Is Obama New Oprah?

To find out the answer, we checked Netherland’s Amazon rank on Friday just before leaving the office for the weekend and took a couple screenshots. At that time, the hardcover edition of the book stood at #1,002, while the forthcoming Vintage paperback was at #4,277.

Today both have jumped substantially: as of 3:24 p.m., the hardcover to #850, the paperback to #950.

What’s more, we noticed that the paperback’s scheduled release date—listed as June 2 on Friday afternoon—has been changed to May 7. Vintage director of publicity Russell Perreault confirmed that the paperback's release had been moved up by a month following the CNN item about Obama’s remark.

Writers hoping to improve their sales should send review copies to the following address: President of the United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20500.

The announcement had been in the works for some time: last week, Knopf director of publicity Paul Bogaards called Mr. Asher and asked him to prepare a statement about his decision. Here's what he got: "I will miss the day to day interaction with my Vintage Anchor family. At the same time, I am thrilled to be working with the best hardcover team in publishing."