On Wednesday, November 13, at 12:00 p.m. ET, indie booksellers unveiled [6] the final book jacket for bestselling author Christopher Moore’s upcoming novel, Shakespeare for Squirrels, as part of a widespread, exclusive cover reveal coordinated by HarperCollins in partnership with the American Booksellers Association.

Shakespeare for Squirrels, a murder mystery take on the Bard’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will be published by William Morrow in May 2020; as part of the initiative, booksellers invited customers to pre-order the book through their stores, and HarperCollins provided everything participating stores needed to help them easily spread the message.

HarperCollins also made available 10-copy signed cartons that included 10 sheets of glow-in-the-dark stickers of stars and character silhouettes, adapted from the cover art, which booksellers could use as a pre-order incentive or a gift-with-purchase; cover art and pre-order graphics were sent to participating booksellers the day before.

Details about the pre-order campaign for Shakespeare for Squirrels are currently available on ABA’s Pre-order Calendar on BookWeb [7]. Booksellers can also check out digital marketing assets for the book here. [8]

At 12:00 p.m. ET sharp, booksellers began posting the cover across social media, including:

This is the fourth indie-exclusive cover reveal with HarperCollins, following the reveal of Adam Silvera’s Infinity Son [19] and Eoin Colfer’s Highfire [20] in August as well as Kacen Callendar’s Felix Ever After [21] in October. In addition to Shakespeare for Squirrels, Moore is the author of 16 previous novels, including Noir, Secondhand Souls, Sacré Bleu, Fool, and Lamb.

Every bookstore has the ability to take pre-orders, either in-store or online, if they have e-commerce capabilities. Booksellers can review the Pre-Order Calendar [22] for more information or read more about pre-orders in Bookselling This Week [23].