30 things I've learnt from 5 years being published: no 9 – publication day is nuts
September 6 2023 marks 5 years since my first novel was released 😲
I’ve now published 6, and have 2 more under contract.
To celebrate, I’m sharing a new post about what I’ve learnt from being published EVERY DAY throughout the month. This post is part of that series!
Click here for the rest →
It’s been five years since my debut novel came out, and I honestly couldn’t remember what I did on the actual day. It’s a whirlwind, a total blur. And so I just went and looked on my phone memories and realised that on my publication day my then three-year-old daughter, my partner and I planted a tree that he had bought me as a celebration present.
Sadly, we’ve since moved house but I love the idea that that tree is growing in tandem with my career. I hope the new owners are looking after it!
This convoluted introduction is really just to tell you that publication day is one of the most exhilarating, bizarre and stressful days of your publishing life.
In fact, it’s not just publication day, but the weeks surrounding it - I’d say for the two weeks beforehand and the two weeks afterwards, you will feel quite unlike you’ve ever felt in your life before.
The most significant thing to point out however, is that nothing much actually happens on publication day. Your book comes out, but it will have been available online for a months now, so that’s nothing new. You’ll probably notice that your Amazon rank goes up, and people start leaving reviews (and it’s always the kind 2-star people who get in there first - oh how I love those people!) but that’s about it.
Obviously if your book is stocked in retail stores or supermarkets, you can take a road trip and go and visit it to take the required awkward selfie posing next to it. But stock isn’t always replenished in the morning, and your book might not actually be stocked in every store of the larger chains, so this can sometimes be a bit of a disappointing enterprise.
For example, my publisher told me my first novel was going to be sold in Asda, a large supermarket chain in the UK. I was thrilled but there were no Asdas near me, so on pub day I got into the car and drove about twenty miles to the nearest one.
I suspect you can guess how this story ends. But yes, my book wasn’t anywhere to be found.
I was invested by now though so I figured, hey, why not drive another 15 miles in the wrong direction to visit a different store and see if I could finally see my book in a supermarket. After all, this was the moment I had been so longing for!
(Sidenote: who knew that getting your book stocked in a supermarket would be possibly one of the most important things to happen to it? Me neither)
But nope. No sign of it there either.
I was CRUSHED I tell you!
Anyway, it taught me a lesson - if possible, ask your publisher for a list of the actual stores your book will be stocked in before you drive around the south east of England like a lunatic trying to track it down.
But if your book isn’t stocked in any brick and mortar shops (which is pretty common these days unless you are one of those aforementioned superleads) then what do you actually do on publication day?
I’ll tell you shall I?
You spend the whole flipping day on social media.
Yep. Really.
Thanking people for their posts, republishing posts from your publisher and/or agent, replying to readers (your book will likely be involved in some kind of blog tour or similar) and typing ‘thank you so much!’ and ‘I hope you enjoy it!’ so many times your fingers ache.
It’s lovely, getting all that attention online.
It’s also kind of weird for writers who spend most of their time being ignored.
I used to think I had to make a big deal of publication day - going out for a fancy lunch or arranging some kind of party to celebrate (I’m not talking about launch parties here, which are a separate matter entirely), or doing something, I don’t know, SIGNIFICANT to mark this SIGNIFICANT occasion.
So I tried my best, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t really enjoy my first few publication days. It probably doesn’t help that I’m allergic to organised fun (New Year’s Eve can get in the sea) - but I found the whole thing really quite bewildering and overwhelming.
I’ve had six of them now though, and finally feel I’ve got publication day down to a fine art. I spend the day alone (this stops me feeling guilty about neglecting everyone in my family by being on my phone the whole time). I book myself a massage or a facial or something else where I have to relax and get away from my phone. In the evening, we get a takeaway and open something fizzy and write on the cork and put it in our ‘family occasions’ cork jar.
I do not relentlessly check my Amazon page, or drive around trying to hunt down my book.
In fact, for my last novel, The Wrong Mother, even though it did get stocked in supermarkets, I never made a special trip to ‘visit’ it.
It felt quite freeing. Knowing that it was out there, somewhere, hopefully finding its readers, whether or not I was there incessantly hovering over it like some overbearing parent.
I’ve come to realise that publication day is really about letting go. Letting your book out into the world, and setting it free.
Hopefully, you’ll have a new book to worry about, one that still needs your time and attention.
But the one that’s just been published is finished with you, and it’s time to move on 😊
