Four ARCs of Mary Pearson's The Miles Between (Holt, Sept.)
are traveling cross-country
over the next few months.

Plenty of authors go on road trips, meeting fans at bookstores and other venues. Mary Pearson, author of last year’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox, however, is taking it a step further. Four advance reading copies of her latest YA novel, The Miles Between (Holt, Sept.), headed out last week on a cross-country road-trip — without the author accompanying them.

The four galleys began their odyssey on May 28 at Pearson’s San Diego home, and are scheduled to wind up—via Pearson’s fans all along the way—on the desk of her editor, Kate Farrell, in the Flatiron Building in Manhattan by September 1.

"I don’t have to go on a tour," Pearson said, noting that while she will be attending conferences in San Diego, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles in the upcoming months, she hasn’t scheduled any fall bookstore appearances. "It’s expensive for me, it’s expensive for my publisher."

As she wrote in her blog: "Since The Miles Between is an unusual road trip story, my editor and I decided it deserved an unusual road trip of its own." Her blog lists instructions for fans wanting to help pass the four ARCs from California to New York.


Mary Pearson.

After calling on her readers to submit requests to participate, Pearson drew the names of four fans from among 50—in Seal Beach, Calif., Longview, Tex., Woodstock, Vt., and Miami Beach—to jumpstart the road trip adventure by having the ARCs shipped to them by the author. To date, one ARC has traveled from California to Connecticut, and another from Texas to Mass.

According to the rules posted on the blog, each recipient of a road-tripping ARC can have it for a maximum of two weeks before passing it on to the next person of their choice along


The new paperback
edition of The
Adoration of Jenna Fox.

the route—who has to live in a different town. Each recipient also must take photographs of the ARC while it is in his or her possession. Photos must be either posted on the fan’s own blog or sent to Pearson to be posted on her blog.

"I thought it’d be cool for people across the country to talk up their favorite local places," Pearson said. "People can show off what they want to show off in their hometowns."

On her blog Pearson also urged fans to "feel free to sign your names and write messages on the inside covers of the ARC.... I can’t wait to see all the miles between San Diego and New York City—your miles!"

The Miles Between

by Mary E. Pearson. Holt, $16.99 ISBN 978-0-8050-8828-1