Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck is a children's novel written by Jeff Kinney and the eighth book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The book's existence was announced at the end of the previous book in the series, The Third Wheel. Hard Luck was released on November 5, 2013 in the United States with a print run of 5.5 million copies and on November 6 in the United Kingdom, where it had a printing of 800,000 copies.