Five Weeks Out...

I'm 61 months pregnant with this dang book

A nice thing about expecting a book: Unlike a baby, you know exactly when it’s coming. You don’t know what world the book will be born into (see: all the authors whose 2020 tours were cancelled) but you do know that the moment bookstores open on your pub date (in my case, February 21st), the book will be out there.

I Have Some Questions for You will be my fifth book (fourth novel) and I’ve been describing it as the literary feminist boarding school murder mystery you didn’t know you needed. Apparently, it is an Aquarius.

I’ve already done this four times, and I have to say it does get easier. The first time, I was an absolute mess and tried to distract myself by taking a cake-decorating class in the back room of a Michael’s craft store. I retained nothing except how to level a cake layer, and I just ended up hating the taste of frosting forever.

Here’s where things stand this time, five weeks out from pub day…

I’m Not Checking Goodreads!

Okay, I’ve checked Goodreads, but less than 72 times. That is such an improvement over previous books.

Oh hey, here it is!

Here Come All My Food and Diet Issues, Oh Boy!

In the interest of total honesty…

A book tour means being onstage, plus seeing people from childhood AND high school AND college AND adulthood, plus people posting photos of you online, plus possibly being on TV, which would be amazing but is also terrifying. (The first time I saw my father after I was on Seth Meyers for my last book, he said “Oh, good, you lost all the weight you gained! We were worried!” I had not gained or lost any weight.)

It’s such a stupid thing to be stressed about on top of the actual career stuff, but here we are. My food issues are real but mild; I can’t imagine the stress for authors who’ve really struggled seriously with disordered eating.

I will distract myself by showing you the UK cover!

Trade Reviews Are Mostly In

There are four “trade reviews” that—if you’re lucky—come out before your book appears. These are the ones booksellers and other lit world people read, and they matter a lot. For adult fiction, you’re hoping to get reviews in Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal. (For children’s books, you’d also hope for the Horn Book Review.) It’s pretty terrifying to wait for these.

Booklist and PW both gave me stars, which is absolutely amazing, and Kirkus gave me a lovely positive review.

(I used to see “starred review” on the back of books and be like “Why didn’t they say how MANY stars it got? Probably just one or two, or else they’d say!” There is only one star. It’s a really, really lovely thing to get.)

Other reviews (newspapers, etc.) come later, so there’s still this wall of dread out there, but I’ve sort of cleared the first hurdle.

Okay so I did an image search on “relief” hoping to find someone who looked relieved, but instead I got reliefs like this. I’m going with it, because being kicked in the balls by a centaur is basically what I’d been bracing for.

I Need to Find Clothes

For my previous books, I always toured in late spring or early summer. I’d pack a few sundresses and a sweater and I was good to go. But for this book, I’m touring in winter, a tour that includes places like Denver (cold), Tucson (warm-to-hot), Seattle (rainy), Milwaukee (cold), Dallas (warm)… I do not know how to pack for this variety of climates, and despite living in Chicago almost my whole life, I can’t figure out what cold-weather stuff looks nice but wouldn’t take up a ton of suitcase room.

You know who I really resent right now? Male authors who pack one pair of nice jeans, seven t-shirts, and a tweedy blazer, and they look smart/cool/dressed up, and they’re not going to freeze, either. Plus they probably wore the jeans and blazer and cool shoes on the plane, so all they’re really packing is t-shirts and socks and underwear. And, like, one razor. Fuck ‘em.

Seriously, no fair.

My Calendar is Filling Up

I’ve got something north of 30 events between late February and April. My (mostly) full tour is here! I’ll also send it out in a future newsletter.

I’m DopilyBegging People to Preorder

Preordering a book (putting in an order at your local indie or your non-local giant online store or requesting it at your library) is one of the nicest things you can do for an author. It lets booksellers and librarians know there’s interest so they should order a bunch of copies… Plus, all those sales pile up and are counted in the first week, which is most authors’ best chance for getting on bestseller lists.

If you feel like being a hero and preordering my book, here are links:
Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores!
Libro.fm does the same, but for audiobooks!
Kobo is an app that lets you download ebooks but still support an indie bookstore!
(Amazon, if you absolutely must, but I promise that you don’t must.)

If you don’t want to preorder mine (because you’re hate-reading this, or because you’re going to see me on tour and your ticket comes with a book), may I suggest Loot, by Tania James, which is brilliant and comes out in June? You won’t be sorry.

Heyyyyy, look at someone else’s book instead!

I’m Basically Married to Prince Harry Now

I had the good fortune to be on a lot of “most anticipated” lists (this definitely did not happen much for my first three books) and in almost all of them, like this one from AARP, I was hanging out with Harry. Now that his book is out, he probably misses me a lot. Poor guy.

If All Else Fails…

…I will heed this advice.