Oh, Here Go Hell Come.

Have you ever worried and worried and worried about what you might do if a certain situation you were kinda dreading -- but also kinda excited for -- actually happened?

I've been stressing about something since early February, and it finally happened today. How do I feel now? Relieved. But not at first.

As Inigo Montoya said best in The Princess Bride, "Let me explain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up."

Here's the deal: My book is about the 2007 multibillion-dollar bidding war for the Chicago Board of Trade, where I worked at the time. The bidding war was started by a company in Atlanta called ICE.

Fast-forward four years. Zero-Sum Game came out in November, and now I'm finally wrapping up marketing and promotional duties for it in order to start working on my next big endeavor (which I publicly committed to on this very site just days ago). Meanwhile, for the past several weeks there have been rumors that ICE was going to kick off yet another bidding war -- this time for the New York Stock Exchange, which in February had entered into a merger agreement with a huge exchange in Germany called Deutsche Börse ("The Germans" in my book, for those of you who've read it).

So why would any of this make me worried? Because I knew ICE would in fact end up making a bid for the NYSE. And I knew that would really give me no choice but to take a deep breath and reignite my media efforts. (Yes, all of that stuff is MY responsibility, publishers typically only help out their most famous authors -- ironic, no?)

Sure enough, this morning ICE and NASDAQ jointly announced a hostile offer for the New York Stock Exchange (technically NYSE Euronext, but I don't expect you guys to be that nerdy and follow all that). Just when I was finally being able to relax and, in LOST terms, "let go."

What did I do? My first reaction was straight outta that awesome clip from The Fashion Show (which I never watched, but heard about from The Soup): "Oh, here go hell come." It was ON. Why? Because mine is the ONLY book in existence about ICE, its CEO, and a bidding war between exchanges. Before today, the vast majority of people don't even know or care about what ICE is or who's running it... but when that same company comes out of nowhere and announces an $11.3 billion offer to buy one of the most iconic American businesses in existence? Um, people start getting interested real quick.

Therefore, even though I'm so, so, SO tired and desperately need a break, I know I owe it to myself to take advantage of the opportunities this headline-making news presents. After all, I spent four years working on Zero-Sum Game! What's a few more weeks? I'm extremely proud of my book, and I want more people to know it exists and to read it. So I cannot rest -- not just yet.

I canceled all of my plans for the day (sorry Julie... sorry Glen... sorry gym...) and sprang into action. I somehow still managed to attend to my redbox duties, but also made contact with a few people I'd met in the media through my first round of book promotion. I was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that just posted, and have a few other cool things in the works for early next week. I was dreading this situation and all of the hard work it would entail, but now that I'm in the thick of it, I'm going to try and enjoy it, be thankful for it, and have fun with it.

My weekend is not going to be very restful now, but maybe that means my eventual FINAL break from book marketing will be that much more sweet. At least that's what I'm telling myself to get through this. Do something relaxing in my honor Saturday or Sunday, won't you?

- e