Five Weeks To Go
...is what I would have said last week except I forgot to hit post
Darkrooms is out on Jan 15th1 so we are officially five weeks out, and I actually think that I’ve slipped into a much calmer and better mindset than I had three months out. In fact, if I were to rank the stress levels linked to debuting, I would probably put three - six months before as the absolute nadir of the experience. At this stage, so much is possible. You’re actually only just realising how much is possible; you have a vague awareness that you’re being put forward for opportunities and folks are reading it, but you can’t know how it’s all going to work out so you’re just desperately hoping to hear something - anything! - good.
Publishers never really give you bad news, in my experience, you are never told explicitly that eg Reese Witherspoon passed your book over for the book club, or that you didn’t get Book of the Month in any US retailers2. Presumably that’s because that would be a really unpleasant email to receive and it’s not super helpful for you to hear. At this point, there’s loads of stuff I’m aware that I’ve missed because of the silence, but probably actually magnitudes more that I still don’t even know exists.
Happily, there are also things that I did get, like the Goldsboro Crime Collective pick, and some stuff I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about but which are very exciting and I can’t wait to talk about.
But, what happens now?
Press stuff: writing pieces to hopefully be accepted into newspapers as part of your book promo.
Events organising: connecting with bookshops and other authors you have a relationship with to see if there’s any appetite for collaboration.
Launch party set-up: finding a venue that works for you and your guests while being affordable and also able to buy books at3, thinking about cake and invitations, worrying that no one will come, etc etc.
It’s actually quite nice to have some concrete actions to take. The three-to-six-months-out hinterland is maybe maddening partially because there’s so little you can do but worry and hope. Now I can mine my personal traumas for material to have printed in a national newspaper, or call every indie bookshop in central London and beg them to be available on my release day! It’s action! It keeps me busy!
So hopefully, in six weeks time when the book is out and we know how it all turned out, I’ll be back to say everything was fine.
In the UK, Jan 13th in the US, Canada, Aus and NZ.
Unless you ask, as I did, so bound was I to the dream of being an American book club pick. Alas, not this time.
So many people have suggested that I sell the books myself and I don’t know how that would work, you guys. It feels like there would be tax implications at the very least.