With less than three months til From Unseen Fire‘s release, on a scale from “high-strung” to “nervous breakdown”, I’m currently approaching “basketcase” and accelerating. From Unseen Fire is starting to actually be read by other human beings. It’s up on NetGalley. There’s a Goodreads Giveaway going on. My publicity team is reaching out to reviewers and bloggers. And while they’re doing this, I’m working on page proofs and finding all of these teeny tiny errors that other people will see. Every error, I’m sure, will result in some hugely influential reviewer utterly trashing me because we didn’t catch that misplaced comma earlier in the process.
My fellow debuts are spinning in these same whirlpools of anxiety and shaken confidence. Those who came before me all warned me that page proofs would make me doubt that I’m even a native English speaker, and wow, they were not kidding. We’re all glued to Twitter and Instagram, seizing any opportunity to promotion. We’re Googling ourselves and our titles obsessively. Those who have reviews coming in on Goodreads and Amazon know better than to look at them but have difficulty prying their eyes away, convinced that a single one-star will forever incinerate their careers. Are we posting about our books enough? Too often? Are we engaging enough? Do we have enough “to-reads” on Goodreads? Are enough bloggers talking about us? Will we get a review from Kirkus or PW? If we do, what if it sucks? If we don’t, does that mean no one will ever know our names? Do our publishers still care about us? Are we asking them too many questions? Or not enough? We’re not supposed to compare ourselves to other authors and we know that, but why does her promo have more RTs??? Every single thing seems life-or-death, and we’re all flailing at each other for comfort, even though it doesn’t so much provide a balm as a momentary distraction from the feeling of impending doom.
And then a thought occurred to me that was oddly calming:
Writers are not normal people.
We’re just not. We do not live in a normal person’s world. Our heads are so deep in the industry that we no longer view books the way normal people do, the way that readers view them. The minutiae sending us into tailspins are possibly not things that a reader will ever be aware of. We freak out because it perhaps gives us a sense of control over an inchoate and unknowable process, but it leads to obsessing over what may turn out to be relative trivialities.
And so, I’m genuinely curious, and truly not for my own selfish promotional reasons, but rather to re-center myself and remind myself of what really matters —
What makes you, Dear Reader, pick up a book? An eye-catching cover? A recommendation from a friend? A good review? Where do you find out about new books and what convinces you to invest both time and money in them?
Cass Morris -- Author 