Aak! There’s too much to say. I returned from our relaxed Japanese vacation to Book Launch Minus Six Weeks and a zillion marketing tasks. The book publishing process is interminably slow and then suddenly it isn’t.
I signed the contract for my novel Shaken Loose back in January 2022 and nothing much happened for months and months. Then there were occasional spurts of activity—choose a book cover, design an author web page, etc.—followed by more stretches of nothing. In Japan, I put the book completely out of my mind for three weeks. Now I’m in hyperdrive. Just a few highlights:
I got my first reader reviews on Goodreads from people who received advance review copies. Thoughtful and positive reviews!
I scheduled two in-person book launch events in San Francisco (July 12) and Oakland (July 13). The S.F. event will include a conversation with my former Chronicle colleague Leah Garchik, and will take place at Green Apple Books by the Park. The Oakland event will include my writing group buddy Monica Wesolowska, and will take place at Montclair Presbyterian Church, sponsored by A Great Good Place for Books.
Shaken Loose was reviewed by Publishers Weekly! This is a big deal from a marketing point of view, since PW is widely read by booksellers, librarians, and others in the industry. And this was a really good review! They “got” the book, which is admittedly quirky and hard to categorize. They cited my “subtle wit and thought-provoking existential dilemmas.” They even called it a “more visceral and more introspective sibling to the TV series The Good Place.”
I received my first box of actual books from the publisher and made an “unboxing” video for social media. There’s an expectation in the publishing world that authors should post videos of themselves opening that first box, usually crying with joy or acting surprised by what’s in the box. Well, I’m not much of a cryer and I definitely knew what was in the box so I took a different tack: You can view it here: The Ten-Year Unboxing.
That’s where we are so far. Now I’m working on drafting essays that I’ll try to place (where??? aak!) to draw attention to Shaken Loose. I hired a publicity firm for outreach to social media book influencers, but I need to create all my own social media memes and posts. I want to print up some cute bookmarks that I can hand out to people. Then outreach to Bay Area news media… etc.
I had wanted to write something deeper and more insightful about preparing for a book launch, but it’s taken pretty much this entire blog post just to summarize what’s going on. I can’t spend any more time writing this tonight, and I suspect you don’t want to spend much more time reading it either.
So let’s save the insight for another time. Right now it’s all hyperdrive. Or as they say on Star Trek, warp drive. And as Captain Picard would say: Engage!