Thank you, Lauren Puckett-Pope and Elle Magazine for selecting my novel, The Peach Seed for your books to read in 2023 list: “65 Of The Best And Most Anticipated Books Of 2023.”
I’m honored to be on this list with many talented authors and exciting book projects such as Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, and Spare by Prince Harry.
Promoting Our Books: Keeping Irons in the Fire
This news came as a huge surprise! Once we’ve often spent years writing and revising, revising, revising, we writers learn quickly that serious work required to promote our books is its own special kind of daunting. I’m talking to friends, getting leads, sending emails all the time. As my Granmama Arlena would say, Keep enough irons in the fire and one of them is bound to get hot.
Fellow Debut Authors: Let’s Distinguish Ourselves
As debut authors, we have to think creatively on how to distinguish ourselves in the endless fray of writers and material out there. Doesn’t have to be a grand, expensive gesture. It can be as simple as sending something by snail mail instead of email and putting it in a neon green envelope hand addressed —with a calligraphy pen if you’re inclined, they don’t cost much at an art store—but even ballpoint works.
Point is: you didn’t type it, you wrote it. This can make even the least exciting penmanship make your receiver feel that you took a little extra time to make them feel special. In this day and age, getting a written note alone is enough to make anybody take notice, but colorful envelopes also have a practical side: they stand out in a stack of drab mail. I know from experience that this tactic works. I was surprised what a difference such a simple thing can make.
Writers: Keep Going!
To writers everywhere working away in your various corners, keep going! As I write in the essay, “The Waiting Room“, if you are working your behind off and it’s still taking a while to move your work to the next level, whatever that may be for you, I think it’s because your ideas, your characters need time to trust you. You don’t want to give up just before that happens!
With technology up the wazoo out here, and a plethora of content platforms looking for stories that only you can write, there is no time like the present for getting behind your work and pushing.