I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser

+ some thoughts going into debut year

Dec 21, 2023

Actually, that’s not true. I think I learned a hell of a lot this past year — about me as a person and a writer.

Anyone who has been reading my deeply inconsistent newsletters will know that this year has been hard. It’s what I’ve called the “void era” where everything is happening behind the scenes, but there’s so little you can share. Especially as a late 2024 debut, you’re watching people get excited for other books that come out before yours, watching them get press and make “anticipated” graphics on IG and chatter, and wondering “Will any of this happen for me?”

It’s a petri dish for breeding jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. I spent a lot of time this year thinking that no one wanted my book and no one was excited for it because it wasn’t getting the talk that other books were. I felt like I was a failure before I even got my chance to start.

What I am coming to realize, though, is that I cannot control any of that. Success in publishing is not dictated by: quality of your writing, the amount of money you made, the push your publisher gives you, the press you get etc. Some of those things help, but none of them are guaranteed knock-it-out-of-the-park success markers. You could get a million dollars and be everywhere, and your book could still flop. You could have made $5 on your advance and somehow, you blow up and are a millionaire. You never know, and what you are today is likely not the way it’ll be forever. Publishing is full of ups and downs no matter who you are.

What I can control is: the content I put out to hype my book, the way I interact with readers, the friends I keep, the spaces I occupy. What I learned since doing my cover reveal is that there are people excited for my book. There were actually a lot of people who’d never heard of it before, but now they have. There are really kind bookstagrammers and readers who found L&OC and include them in their anticipated lists, respond to my stupid jokes on social media, and show their enthusiasm for this book. And that is so awesome. What I can do is show my appreciation and create things that make me happy, for people and places that make me happy. I have full control over that.

No one asked, but here’s My Survival Guide™:

Get the hell out of spaces that are not serving you. I joined every group I could when I got my deal, hoping it’d help me make connections and would be the way I guaranteed success. Instead, it ended up tanking my mental health. I ditched the 2024 debuts slack several months ago and I have felt far better about my place in the romance community and my book’s chances of success. If these spaces are helpful to you, great! I hope they are for a lot of people. But definitely don’t feel like you have to stay in them. When I posted about leaving on IG, I had SO many established authors tell me they did the same thing, so clearly, it is not a make or break. Don’t let it break your confidence or mental health.
Find. Your. Friends. I don’t mean make as many as possible and befriend everyone. Find the people who truly care about you — your wins, your losses, your plot bunnies and roadblocks, your completely random everyday nonsense. Friends do not ask you to make yourself small for them. Friends do not look down on you. Publishing churns up a lot of uncomfortable feelings and having a close-knit group of people who will listen and hear you is critical.
Stop moving the goalposts. The goal was always “Publish a Book”. That’s been my goal since I was 14 years old, and 15 years later, it’s going to happen. A book I wrote and love is going to be published by my dream publisher. It’s going to be on shelves in bookstores. That’s awesome and I worked damn hard for it. There’s no need to then be like “Well, if I don’t get a film deal/hit a list/outsell Colleen Hoover etc., I’m a flop”. It’s good to set goals and ways to challenge and grow yourself, but you don’t always need to hold yourself to impossible standards.

These are all easier said than done, but they can be good ways to stop yourself from spiraling. I am going to try to take them to heart extra hard in 2024, leading up to the L&OC release.

ON THAT NOTE… a few little bits of info on Love and Other Conspiracies.

ICYMI, Love and Other Conspiracies is available for preorder wherever books are sold, and will be hitting shelves August 20, 2024. I am hoping to have some kind of preorder campaign with a local indie, but no plans have been made just yet. More on that in the coming months!

I received 9 galleys from Berkley, and I am going to be sending one around on a traveling ARC train. I will be collecting takers through the end of 2023, and will get that bad boy out at the top of the new year! Sign up here, if you’re interested!

I’ll be back with more nonsense in the new year, and probably a decent amount of it because I actually have a BOOK COMING OUT NEXT YEAR.