#73 A Slow Sunday Scroll ☕️
book promotion, selling your work & keeping your soul intact
I’ve been thinking a lot about self-promotion this week. Specifically, how much (or little) I want to do of it around my new novel that comes out this April. This isn’t my first rodeo—I’ve written eight books now—and I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’ve had some quite memorable experiences over the years, too. I’ve sat across from comedians like Frank Skinner at literary festival dinners, I’ve been on Sky News (it was on Zoom and my husband accidentally walked into the room in the background), I've travelled to the BBC broadcasting house in Salford to stay in a tiny hotel room and go on live TV at 6am the next day. I’ve done a book event on a small island where hardly anyone showed up. I’ve been part of a panel that got heckled by an angry audience member at Cheltenham Lit Fest. I’ve flown to the UAE for a book festival. I’ve been one half of a TV debate hosted by Eamon Holmes. All in service of hopefully getting my books out there.
Nowadays, I no longer say yes to everything, mainly because I like my slippers too much, but also because I’m more interested in building my existing readership than the endless broadcasting. The reason I love Substack so much is because I feel like I’m speaking to my people vs shouting into the wind. I always come back to the famous phrase from Seth Godin: if you try to be for everyone, you'll end up being for no one. (And, worse, you’ll lose sight of yourself.)
There isn’t a tried and tested formula when it comes to selling a book. It really is a mystery. Yes, it depends on how much the publishers invest in marketing, or how much the cover resonates with people, or whether there’s any word-of-mouth excitement via heated bookclub discussions, or whether people want to shout about it on TikTok. Books take on different journeys now; the days of promoting your book for five minutes on the radio during the morning commute and instantly hitting the bestseller list are long gone. There are so many channels now, and it can be overwhelming, with so many different algorithms at play. Timings don’t always make sense. Books live on, things come back around, and it’s really not just about the launch period anymore.
You do what you can, by writing the best book you can, and then you leave it up to fate. It’s a privilege and a joy to be publishing and publicising a book—but it’s also hard. You spend years writing 90,000 words. Then editing for many more months. Then it’s gone to print, it’s done! Then, you realise the work isn’t over. You are expected to promote the book for months—at events, online, and for the sheer love of it. But it’s not a hobby, it’s a job, and as much as I love doing book events, if you’re an introvert hermit (like me these days), one event can take me days to recover from. I think most authors envy Sally Rooney because her books appear to sell themselves.
The upcoming publication of Table for One feels different, mainly because I promoted my first novel, Olive, during the pandemic. I did all the interviews on Zoom from one small room in my house. It was really depressing (as it was for everyone). My big dream, my debut, my once-in-a-lifetime moment, reduced to a pixelated screen. A year later, when the paperback came out, the bookshops had reopened and I was in a bookstore when a young woman came up to me with a pen and a copy of my paperback novel and asked me to sign it, and she started crying, because the book meant a lot to her and I didn’t know what to do. I was so out of practice, so shocked to see someone in person, in real life, holding my book. I felt so socially awkward after years only talking about the book online. We hugged, and it felt really special, and then I felt sad about all the other readers I had missed out on meeting at events or signings. It felt tender for a long time, like pressing on a bruise, thinking about all the plans that didn’t happen.
So I’m incredibly grateful that I’ll be out in the world this time. I’m also looking forward to doing a few events for readers (in the Spring) which I’ll be announcing soon. But it doesn’t mean I want to do everything and anything. I won’t be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. I’ll be ring-fencing my time, choosing wisely. I want the book to do well of course, but I also want to stay sane. I keep thinking about something Chappell Roan recently said: “The longevity of my career isn’t up to me, but the longevity of my soul, is.” Oof. Any artist or writer and creator knows what it means to keep your soul intact amongst the ‘selling of your wares’.
At dinner with an author friend recently, who has written 25(!) books and someone I admire so much, she said: “The thing is, I’m not going to beg anyone to buy my book.” This is the energy she brings. She has faith in her work. She writes her books to the best of her ability, does what she can, sends them out to friends, completes the few things her publisher asks, and then lets them go. She starts writing the next one.
Selling books is a hard business. There’s been lots of ‘blurb discourse’ recently about whether or not anyone cares about the little endorsements on the cover of books (I wrote my thoughts on the topic here.) Most authors find asking for blurbs very cringey. You’re basically asking for people’s most precious resource—time. I no longer expect anything. I leave it to my editor and agent to handle blurbs, then put my fingers in my ears and forget about it. Then the other day, I got an email from my agent: “Ruth Jones loves your book!” WHAT!? Ruth Jones, i.e. icon and legend, author, co-writer of Gavin and Stacey. I couldn’t believe it. I love her work and it felt like a pure act of generosity on her part. This is why I’ll always try and blurb books I enjoy, when I have the bandwidth to do it. It’s an incredible feeling when someone, out of the blue, decides to support your work.
“Table For One is a fabulous read; such a refreshing idea, deliciously unpredictable with a story that gripped me from the start. I found it uplifting and inspiring, and thought provoking. Solo Power! Gorgeous characters too.” — RUTH JONES
With every book publication, there is something I know to be true: your book will find the right people at the right time.
And if you do fancy pre-ordering a copy…. then, well, you absolutely can.
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In this issue below, I share a book that has genuinely changed how I think, a film I absolutely loved, a new investigative podcast I’m hooked on, and lots more.
