We are thrilled to reveal the cover for ‘Wave 2: The Sequel’. After a wait of twenty years, this book will follow Wil’s hit 2005 novel ‘Wave’. In spite of a bankrupt distributor and no marketing budget, ‘Wave’ sold through its first printing in less than six weeks, making it the subject of a national news article that ran on Yahoo! and Bloomberg Newswire. It then won the New Jersey Notable Book Award, after which NYC powerhouse publisher Macmillan purchased the rights to both the softcover and eBook.
Interestingly, the sequel’s cover design is based on that of the first book, with some minor differences symbolic to the story. The photo of the Barnegat Lighthouse with scaffolding, for example, was inspired by a photo taken by Wil during an a repainting of the lighthouse several years ago. The actual lighthouse photo used on the cover was taken by Lori Nichols for NJ Advance Media for an article that ran on NJ.com (and has been used with permission, of course). And the quote at the top of the cover comes from Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Robbie Dupree, a longtime friend of Wil’s known for such classic radio hits as ‘Steal Away’ and ‘Hot Rod Hearts’.
We’ve reported in recent months that Wil was scheduled to be interviewed for an upcoming documentary. That interview was carried out on Sunday, March 23rd by a European production team and lasted just over two hours. The program will feature several other notable figures and be completed later this year, then distributed for international broadcast. We will share the full details when the project is ready for release.
In the meantime, keep an eye out
for further updates concerning Wil’s next novel, the sequel to his 2005
bestseller ‘Wave’. The marketing campaign begins in full next week.
****
For all inquiries, please use general@wilmara.com. All emails are answered within 24 hours
In May of
2005, Wil’s first novel for adults was published—‘Wave’ was a thriller about
a tsunami strike on Long Beach Island, a barrier island off the coast of southern
New Jersey, following a terrorist plot gone wrong. Even against the massive disadvantages
of no marketing budget (not one penny) and a bankrupt distributor (Koen, who
filed for Chapter 11 just days before the book’s release), ‘Wave’ sold through
its first printing in less than six weeks. Retailers were unable to keep it in
stock, and the booksignings that summer—every single weekend—saw lines out
the door and down the sidewalk. All this buzz eventually caught the attention
of Bloomberg Newswire, who ran a national story on the ‘Wave’ phenomenon. ‘Wave’
received the New Jersey Notable Book Award that fall, then New York came
calling—Macmillan Publishing, one of the oldest and most respected in the
business, acquired the rights for the paperback and eBook, both of which were
released the following year.
In the
decades since, Wil has been asked many times about a sequel—and not just by
the fans. The original publisher has asked at least once a year, as it remains
their bestselling fiction title to this day. The answer was always a regretful
‘no’, along with the explanation that Wil felt the story had fully resolved
itself in the first book, so nothing further needed to be told. That changed,
however, in June of 2022.
“It was a
Monday morning,” Wil said in a recent interview, “and I was heading downstairs to
my office. I hadn’t been thinking about ‘Wave’ or anything related to it. The
only thing on my mind was what I needed to write that day. Then, on about the
second or third step, it all came in a bright, forceful vision—bang! Just
like that. By the time I got to the bottom of the staircase, I had the whole
story.” An email to his publisher with the subject line ‘Wave sequel’ was met
with a single-sentence response: “No f**king way.” The following Wednesday, they
had a Zoom meeting to discuss the story in detail. And the following Friday, a
contract was issued.
Fast forward
to the present—the manuscript is nearly complete, a fantastic cover design
has been finalized, and an ambitious promotional campaign is in the works. (One
interesting bit of trivia, too—Wil has been writing the sequel on the same
laptop he used for ‘Wave’ back in 2003.) The sequel will be released in May of
2025, twenty years to the day of the first. We are not yet ready to begin sharing
plot details, but those will be forthcoming sooner than later. What we can say
at this point is that all of the fan-favorite characters from the first book
will be returning (in one way or another), plus a few new ones. Anyone who
enjoyed ‘Wave’ will absolutely love the sequel. And for those who never read it,
the sequel still functions as a standalone story, every bit as heart-pounding
as its predecessor.
So please stay
with us on this—there’s plenty more to come!
Happy
2024 to one and all! And we’re thrilled to begin the new year with an exciting
announcement—the Rosa Parks biography that Wil wrote as part of the ‘Rookie
Biography’ series, which he helped develop from the ground up for Scholastic
Publishing, has been chosen by Book Authority as one of the four best American
biographies for early readers in the nation! Book Authority curates the world’s
leading web site for book recommendations by national figures in order to help
librarians and other readers choose the most impactful books on any subject.
Past recommendations have come from Bill Gates, Reese Witherspoon, Warren
Buffet, Steve Jobs, and Sheryl Sanburg, and Book Authority council members have
been featured on CNN, Forbes, Inc., and in other global media outlets.
“They look easy to write, the Rookie Biographies,” Wil said in his initial response to the news, “but trying to capture the essential life story of a historical figure like Rosa Parks with just three-hundred words, and using only language that can be easily understood by someone in the first or second grade, is a maddening challenge. That’s been essentially the formula for the Rookies all along—roughly three-hundred words, and a Lexile level no higher than about 400 to 500. Now I know how Superman felt when he had to change his clothes in a phone booth.”
To
see the list of four recommended biographies, click here—
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ: It was announced late yesterday that Wil Mara has been appointed the new Chairman of the New Jersey Center for the Book, with Sharon Rawlins, of the New Jersey State Library, to serve as Vice Chair. The Center is affiliated with both the United States Library of Congress and Rutgers University, in particular their celebrated School of Communication and Information.
For more than two decades, the New Jersey Center for the
Book has “…advanced a dynamic literacy agenda, championing its definition as
the ability to read and write while extending it to include literacies emerging
in the 21st century.” It has focused particularly on the rich and ongoing
literary heritage of the Garden State, in particular its students and
educators, its talented authors and illustrators, and its many literary
landmarks. The Center’s founder, Renee Swartz, had an inestimable impact during
her tenure, initiating countless programs that sustain to this day, along with
a supporting Board of Directors who have given selflessly of their time and
considerable talents to ensure that the Center’s mandate was faithfully
fulfilled. In the years ahead, the Center’s new leadership will carry Renee’s remarkable
legacy forward with new initiatives designed to further the organization’s
reach and influence.
Wil Mara has served on the Center’s Board for many years. He has also been an author since the mid 1980s and has more than 340 books to his credit. His 2013 novel Frame 232 was a bestseller that won the Lime Award for Excellence in Fiction. His 2006 novel The Draft became the hit movie Draft Day starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner. And his 2005 novel Wave won the New Jersey Notable Book Award. In 2019, he launched the supernatural series ‘Twisted’ for middle-grade readers through West 44 Books (a division of Rosen Publishing), which has earned high praise from Booklist, School Library Journal, and librarians from around the country, as well as the Gold Standard Award from the Junior Library Guild. He was also an editor and production executive inside the publishing business for over twenty years (Prentice Hall, Scholastic, Harcourt Brace) and the creator and facilitator of the ‘Myth of the Reluctant Reader’ lecture series. His awards include the Literary Lion Award in 2019 and, from the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, the New Jersey Author of the Year in 2020.
Sharon Rawlins, also a longtime Board member for the Center,
has been the New Jersey State Library’s Youth Services Coordinator for over
fifteen years. She has supported other librarians statewide through her work
with the annual Summer Reading Program, the Collaborative Summer Library
Program national initiative, and the fall Youth Service Forum. She has also
forged critically beneficial alliances with a diverse collection of
organizations—from the Franklin Institute Science Museum to the National Girls
Collaborative Project. She also serves as the State Library’s representative to
the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, attending both their meetings
and their annual conference. She has been a steadfast presence at the annual National
Book Festival in support of the New Jersey Center for the Book, and she plays
an active role on the Garden State Book Awards committee. In 2019, she was
recognized for her tremendous contributions to the state when she received the
New Jersey’s Librarian of the Year Award.
