The Cover Has Landed

And other Really Exciting Things

This is Snowball. She’s excited this week. You should be too. (No hens were harmed in the writing of this Note. She’s just molting, and not gracefully.) Photo by author.

Oh, hi.

I’m going to keep this Note short, because I have a guest post coming out tomorrow and I want you to read it. I wrote it for you, back in September when I was on my way to England, and I have the opportunity to share it with a wider audience—which is really exciting! So. Skim this for all the Really Exciting Things, and then when you get When the Words Wash Away in your inbox tomorrow, click on it and read it and let me know what you think.

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Excitement Abounds

• Publication Date Set! Now that the formatting is complete and I have the cover, I’m finally going to commit to a publication date. The date is January 17. I hope you will:

  • buy one or more books during the week after publication, and beyond.

  • share on social media and with friends and loved ones that this author you know wrote a really awesome book they should definitely buy, read, and review.

  • review (and compel others to review) the book on Amazon, Goodreads (you can do this now if you’re a Beta or ARC reader), and wherever else they wish.

• Wait. Cover? Yes! The cover is also complete! Here’s a TikTok I made about it. I freaking love it. My cover designer, Kari Brownlie, is amazing and professional and responsive and perfect, and I can’t wait for her to design the rest of my book covers until the end of my days.

• Wait, TikTok? Yes… I have figured out a way to be on TikTok that hopefully will be sustainable. Check me out.

• Guest opportunities. In addition to the guest post you’ll be receiving tomorrow, I also was approached with two huge opportunities (!) today, that will coincide with the book’s launch! I will share more when I know more!

• Words from famous people. That’s a cheeky way to phrase it, but they say having words from famous people on your book jacket will lend credibility and social proof to your book. who knows if this is actually true or not, but I spoke this week with my favorite author, and she said she’s on track to deliver the blurb by the end of the week. I AM SO EXCITED. And also feeling very impostery. And definitely convinced she’ll hate the book and be forced to write something like, “It was pretty good,” so she doesn’t have to write, “It was trash and I can’t believe I subjected myself to it.”

• Goodreads giveaway launches tomorrow! I’m giving away two signed paperbacks to US readers who enter my giveaway on Goodreads, running from December 8 until January 7. Be sure to enter! I’ll send a working link next week.

• Website updates. I updated a bunch of stuff on the website to reflect the new book and the fact that I will no longer be seeking an agent (I received 2 rejections since I began the self-publishing process, and they filled me with elation because I didn’t have to be demoralized anymore).

• Things I stopped obsessing over:

  • Whether or not to publish before Christmas. I made a conscious decision to not publish before Christmas and to wait a reasonable amount of time after New Year’s so I wasn’t competing with resolutiony purchases. Then a bunch of people asked if they could buy this book for friends and family members for Christmas, and I was like, maybe…? But no. It is exciting and tempting, but I am going to stick with my original timeline because there’s no good reason to rush myself. So if you want to get the book for gifts, you can! On January 17. 🤣 And then we’ll just call them late-Christmas or birthday or anytime gifts and that’s okay.

  • Also-boughts. I mentioned this a few weeks ago and then promptly forgot about it until I was reviewing that Note today. I don’t need one more thing to stress over. So I won’t.

Thank you for sharing in my excitement, and for supporting me for the past 4 hours or 4 years or 40 years. I hope you’re having a great week so far, and that you enjoy tomorrow’s Note.

Until next time,