Why I'm Not Anxious About Publication Day

because I already know what's going to happen

Hi friends,

We are almost one month away from the publication of my book WRITE THROUGH IT (preorder now!)¹ I’ve done a bunch of podcast interviews already. I recorded the audiobook. Wheels are moving for some in-person events. Things are getting real! And I’m having a wide variety of feelings about it.

Every time I’ve come home recently, I hold my breath. My author copies could come any day now. Soon there’s going to be a cardboard box on my stoop and I’m going to open it and I will hold the finished copy in my hands. I think I’m prepared for that moment, but we’ll see. Of course I’ll film it for you.

I’ve felt a hiccup, too, the several times I’ve talked to podcast hosts and they’ve said “I read your book” and “in chapter three when you say…” Eeep! Someone has read this book that isn’t me, my agent, or someone at my publisher. The realness of that, too, is very interesting to experience. I’m not worried about their reactions (they, of course, have all been nice). I’m not even worried about bad reviews. (There will be some because that’s life.) It’s just the realness of things. This book is no longer hypothetical and hasn’t been for a long time.

And then there will be pub day. That is going to be….something! It will also be a Tuesday. I will have my regularly scheduled therapy appointment in the morning (well timed) and probably some kind of promotional thing to do during the day, hopefully. I will have my normal job to do. I will pick up my kid from school, and there’s a very good chance the indie bookstore that’s on walk there won’t stock the book. (It’s kinda a weird store. But I should drop off a flyer!) I’ll go somewhere that will have it and I’ll sign some copies and take some pictures. I’ll do something in the evening. I will post and post and post about it online and will enjoy the glow of congrats twitter (except on Bluesky) and I’ll go to bed happy. Or something like that.

And that’s it. And that’s so much! But I already know that I won’t be a different person on June 11th and I won’t be looking for my name on the best seller list that week or the next and there won’t be a camera crew outside my door, blinding me with their flash blubs. Reese Witherspoon will not call me and say omg we forgot to tell you! Your book is our new bookclub pick this month!!!! Several other great books come out that day—Madeleine Roux’s A GIRL WALKS INTO THE FOREST and Joy Callaway’s Sing Me Home to Carolina among them. It’s a big day to me. It’s a big day to other authors, too.

And to everyone else it’s Tuesday.

This is not a bad thing! This is normal! I encourage you to think about your publication day this way! Because you know what else is not going to happen that day? No one is going to come to your house and throw tomatoes at you. You will not get a deluge of bad reviews. No one has had time to read it! No one is going to @ reply you and say who does this person think she is???????? Neither the very good things nor the very bad things are going to happen on pub day and that’s why it is not causing me any outsized anxiety. It’s a little like Christmas once you’re an adult. It’s still fun and magical. You might get a nice present. But you know who’s pulling the strings by then (and you’re probably pulling the strings). But unlike Christmas, your pub day is just the beginning. It’s the start of your book’s life. People can buy it now! Get it from the library! That’s pretty exciting.

What happens after that is anyone’s guess.

OXOXOXOX,

Kate

Right this way

1. They send me weekly updates on how many preorders there are. Won’t you help make that number go up for me?