Lessons from the Road

I’ve spent the last three months in promotion mode—touring, chatting on podcasts, posting content on social media for my publishers. Back when I was new to the author life, I loved this part of the job. Back then it was group tours and guest posts for book bloggers. Back then I hated weekends because I wouldn’t get any updates from my editor or agent. I paid my own way to small conventions, made my own merch, sat next to far more successful authors while their readers shuffled by, giving me embarrassed looks that said, “So sorry, I’m not here for you.” It didn’t bother me. I smiled. I introduced myself. “Have a button,” I said. “Have a bookmark.” Back then I said yes to everything because I was afraid the invitations wouldn’t come again.

There’s no shame in being new or undiscovered—at any age. But social media has really warped our idea of what it means to be a published author. I’ve participated in this distortion. I signed up for Instagram days before my first tour in 2012. You can scroll all the way back and see my sweet pup Bertie, one of the hotel rooms I stayed in on that first group tour, a bouquet of flowers Anna Banks sent me when I hit the list for the first time. But you won’t see the empty bookstores, the sparsely attended events, the shops we visited to sign stock that had no copies of our books because they hadn’t bothered to order them. The truth wasn’t glamorous, but I can tell you I positively floated through that tour and the many that came after. I was coming up on 40, newly divorced, thrilled to be free and to have my dream job after years of gigs in everything from makeup to marketing. I traveled with a massive suitcase called The Beast stuffed with a different outfit for every stop, changes of shoes, two curling irons. I didn’t care about airport delays or terrible turnout. But I still knew not to share the depressing stuff, the less than fabulous moments, the embarrassments.

Since then social media has only gotten more glossy. The filters got better. We went from people saying “don’t forget social media is a highlight reel” to everyone making literal highlight Reels. If you browse Instagram or TikTok now, you’d think being an author was all packed events, red carpet fits, trips to the coffee shop, morning show appearances. But this is not the experience of most authors, certainly not most debut authors.

Here’s the reality: Most authors have day jobs. Many authors who don’t have day jobs have to supplement their publishing income with speaking or teaching gigs. Most authors struggle to fill the seats at a bookstore. Most authors never hit the NYT list or any list. Most authors will never win a big award or get gifted couture (a girl can dream). This is not because they aren’t talented or don’t hustle hard enough. It’s because the market is weird and fickle and publishers often buy books then neglect to put money into their promotion.

I’ve met so many folks who, in the wake of their first book launch, find themselves completely deflated. They finally got the dream but it doesn’t look or feel like the dream they’ve been convinced to expect. They think they didn’t do enough, that if they had just posted more, built a bigger following, spilled a little more blood, they would have gotten the dream they were promised. They punish themselves.

That’s why acknowledging the gap between fantasy and reality matters: We’re selling new authors a falsehood. Some people will make it big right out of the gate: big sales, big events, fancy photoshoots. Good on them! But most writers have a different journey in store. When I started out over a decade ago, having twenty people in the audience was cause for celebration. Fifty? A miracle. And yes, there were silver linings to these small events: I got to spend more time chatting with readers. I wrote quotes into every book. The lines weren’t long, so on group tours, we’d go out to dinner together and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. But man I was jealous of the authors who pulled crowds in the hundreds.

Every event I did for five, ten, twenty people made me doubly grateful for the events I get to do now. But I wish I’d been more honest about the beginning, the long march, the way I got to see those crowds change and grow. The philosophy then—as now—was “fake it til you make it.” You had to try to look bigger than you were. Sort of like fighting a mountain lion. Look at me, I’m huge! But it’s also so damn hard to break that habit. On this last tour, I made the exact same moves I’ve always made on social media: I shared fanart, tattoos, a crowd of nearly a thousand people chanting “No funerals.” I didn’t share the sexy view of a highway and a rooftop air conditioning unit, the breakdown I had in an airplane bathroom after hours of delays and canceled flights, the time I spent lying on my back on a hotel floor (probably not the most sanitary) with my feet up on the wall, trying to get my muscles to stop seizing after a long signing for TIP, or how scared I am that I won’t hit my deadlines because I’ve been touring for nearly two months and I’m terrible at writing on the road.

So, I’m sharing all of that here. Because if you’re at the start, if the debut let you down, if you’re wondering how to get anyone to pay attention during this noisy, fraught, ridiculous time, that is really and truly okay. Being an author is the best job in the world, but not because people tell you they love you or you get to wear a fancy outfit and wave to a crowd. It’s the best because we get to make things for a living, because we get to wrestle with our stories and we get those spectacular moments of revelation when we solve the problem, when the plot locks into place, when we cut a little here, add a little there, change up a word and, oh there it is, the sentence rings like a bell. That’s what matters, even if social media tries to tell us otherwise.

I’m on hiatus for the next few months while I finish up Dead Beat (did you hear? the final Ninth House book is coming!) and work on some other projects. I’ll show up on Instagram to share big news or announcements because that’s part of the job. But DMs are closed and I’m uninstalling the app. So that I can write. So that I can do the hardest and best part of the job. Maybe you want to join me.

What I’m listening to:

Isadora by Witch

Buckle by Florence + the Machine

What I’m watching:

The Diplomat Season 3

What I’m reading:

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies