In Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (an
alternate sort of Bible for writers) there is a poignant chapter on the bloated
expectations authors have for “Publication Day.” [See page 208, “Publication”]
Publication day is a date set by traditional
publishers, after which the book will be available in stores or for order
online. It’s the TAH-DAH!!! Day and your book’s birthday and let’s have
a party day, drum-roll, ready-set-go-- horns blowing and pop out of a cake:
your book is out in the world. 🎆
As Ms. Lamott tells it, it is nothing
of the above. 99.9% of published writers
know she’s spot on.
On any given year, all the parades
and woopteedoo are for ten or twenty titles in the whole country. These are
from the uber commercially successful authors or debuts that somehow hit the
nerve-de-jour, usually for political reasons. Fine fiction writers should know
that publication day is meaningful to one person only, themselves.
You can give your book a launching
party, and it will be attended mostly by supportive friends. You can do a blog
tour exchanging favors with other author friends, and their readers will note
your book was born. It’s fine, because it means something to you.
But no parade. Nope, not even a small
one. The hard work of letting people you never met become aware your story is
available has just. barely. begun.
A good glimpse into the realistic
experience of almost all authors and what we can, in fact, do on publication
day— is in this
post.
I’d add that doing a private dance in
front of the mirror is highly recommended, also.
🎈🎈🎈
7 comments:
Excellent article. Thanks. You have a link to shared on Facebook, so I'm going to do that. I think your post is very honest and informative, something writers need to hear.
Agreed. I always tried to share my new books with a workshop at school, donate a copy to the library, and that's about it. It is fun to celebrate a book birthday but gosh, in 2020, when Little Thief! came out, really the only place I celebrated was on the Blueboard! And it was enough.
It has always been a sore spot that the authors whose books will sell even without the hoopla are the ones who get all the marketing bucks. Yet is the lesser known writer who needs the attention more. I don’t understand why publishers throw more money on already guaranteed sales because of a famous author’s following. But that’s the publishing world.
MirkaK, this is another version of not being able to enter a shoe store unless you are wearing shoes :), or borrowing money from a bank unless you already have money in the bank, preferably lots of it.
Yep! Have your own private celebration. And work hard to get your book out there.
Oh so true! Sometimes I think our too-high expectations get us into more trouble and cause more unhappiness than anything else.
Well said. Probably the nicest celebration tribute I received was for my first book--it was so totally unexpected. The teachers at my previous school (a small private Montessori school) sent me flowers to my new school. The flowers were waiting for me on the counter in the school office with a congratulations note. So I didn't have to tell people at my new school--the note made the announcement for me.
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