[1] The novel tells the interwoven stories of twentysomethings on the prowl for thrills in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood following the city’s infamous Dot-com crash.

[citation needed] At the time SoMa was published, James produced a series of videos for YouTube in which he appeared as Kemble Scott to take viewers to the real places that inspired the novel.

The influential tech blog Valleywag noted the videos, but criticized them for being too tame, compared to the sexually explicit content of the novel.

The first edition premiered as a digital book and was the first novel sold by social publisher Scribd.com in a new e-commerce venture called "Scribd Store," according to the Associated Press.

On August 31, 2009, Numina Press published the first hardcover edition, which instantly hit the San Francisco Chronicle's bestsellers list, premiering at #5 for that week.