Thoughts on releasing a book into the world

aka THE NEW YEAR'S PARTY is out today and I'm trying to be chill as f#&%

Hello, lovely readers! My 3rd book, The New Year’s Party, is out in the world today! (And if you’d like to get a little snippet about the glamours of launch day, I made this lil’ Instagram reel for your enjoyment ;).

If you’ve been here for a while, you may remember me talking about how miserable I was during the first week (at least) following the release of my two previous books (read all about that here and here). Which, honestly, is so annoying. I mean, I spent 4 1/2 years in the query trenches trying to find an agent, followed by 4 years of being on sub with my agent across 6 projects before finally selling a book. That’s 8 1/2 years, during which I accumulated over 800 rejections (yes, you read that correctly). You’d think that once I achieved my dream of getting these manuscripts off my dang computer and onto shelves, it would be all celebration all the time.

Unfortunately, emotions can’t always be wrangled to do what we want them to do, unwieldly little beasts that they are. And, as I discovered when launching books #1 and #2, it turns out I have a really hard time with the fact that I have little to no control over how well my books sell, and yet I know my publishers are looking at those numbers with an eagle eye, and will sign me again (or not) depending largely on these numbers. (The ‘or not’ happened already by the way—you can read that here, and yes, I’m aware that I’m linking y’all to depressing story after depressing story 😂).

Third time’s the charm?

This time around, I am doing my utmost to avoid the misery of ‘BUT ARE WE SELLING ENOUGH BOOKS’ with a brilliant new plan called “trying not to give a f*&^.”

This is more difficult than it may seem. 😂 At risk of beating a dead horse here, how a book performs does have an affect on a writer’s career. “Soft” sales as they call them (because God forbid we just say “poor” or “low” hahaha) can be a significant barrier to overcome when you’re trying to sell your next book. It’s not an impossible barrier to overcome, but it does make things more difficult.

This time around, I’m doing something different. Instead of hoping for this book to “take off,” I’ve already accepted this book will have soft sales.

(& I henceforth dare it to surprise me)

This time around, for better or for worse, I have also opted out of asking about numbers. I have not asked my editor about print run size. I have not asked about sell-in (how many books the publisher has placed in bookstores, and if they’re pleased or not). I normally love information and am very type A when it comes to things that directly affect me. I’ve always operated with a deep-seated assumption that the more knowledge, the more empowerment, and I do think that’s true for most things in life. However, at this point, I have to recognize that learning these numbers did not serve my mental health the first two times around, so I’m doing a hard pivot and, for this book, embracing the old mantra ‘ignorance is bliss.’

My goal for today

I’m going to try and stay present and accept that uncomfortable dichotomy that, while this book will very likely be a ‘failure’ with regards to my publisher’s expectations (I have yet to publish a book that has not, btw), it is an absolute success for me.

I have three books out in the world when, 16 months ago, I had zero books out the world. And that’s awesome, dammit! YES gurl! GET ‘EM!

So, yeah. Wish me luck as I continue my attempt at psychologizing myself into letting go of worry and embracing the huge success it actually is to write and publish a book, as well as the years upon years of effort and rejection that led up to today.

Also, if you’d like to make those anticipated ‘soft sales’ a bit ‘less soft,’ I would be thrillllllled. (LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA)

You can buy The New Year’s Party at all the usual places, and here are some links! Also, the audiobook narrator is a LEGEND in her field, so I highly recommend the audio version!

The Book Cellar (where my launch event is; I’ll leave signed copies!)

Bookshop.org

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

For those coming to my launch, see you tonight, and for the rest of you, see you ‘round the Substack next week!

In the meantime, here’s a CrimeReads article that just went live and that I had a lot of fun writing (linked in the image). ;) Cheers!