Publishing a Book Forty Years Ago vs. Publishing a Book Now

 

As I was doing my massive book giveaway this summer, I realized that I had published my very first book, Luisa's American Dream, in 1981. Now, forty years later, I am publishing my 61st book, Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star, coming out from Holiday House on August 3. 

Forty years ago, books were just. . . published. There it was, my book, out in the world. I don't remember even knowing what the "pub date" was, or indeed even knowing that there was such a thing as a "pub date," though I suppose there had to be a particular date on which the book came to exist as a physical object available for purchase. But that date certainly wasn't on my radar as its author.

There was no such thing as a pre-publication "cover reveal" on Facebook and Twitter, because there was no such thing as the internet. Indeed, there weren't even any personal computers, not to mention laptops and cellphones. I typed that first book on an IBM Selectrix typewriter. There was no such thing - or at least I didn't know of any such thing - as a "book launch." And if there had been, I certainly wouldn't be telling people about it on my blog, because there were no such things as blogs. 

The commonality across the decades is that, both then and now, it's a wondrous - and anxious - thing to publish a book, to pour one's heart into its pages, work through all the stages of publication with the publisher's editorial team, and then to send it off to make its brave way into the wide, wide world. I feel the same joy - and trepidation - now as I did four decades ago. 

Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star is the fourth and final title in a four-book chapter book series set in an after-school program, where every month (and every book) takes place in a different month-long after-school camp: cooking camp, comic book camp, coding camp, and now, sign language camp. 

The research for the books was as fun as the writing itself. I did know something about cooking when I wrote Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, but comic books and coding were completely new territory for me. (I might note that "coding" as an activity for kids didn't exist forty years ago, either!) 

Sign language was most challenging of all: American Sign Language is extraordinarily beautiful as a form of human communication, but not easy to describe in words, especially in words for third-grade-level readers. But Boogie fell in love with it, and I did too. 

Dear readers, you are all invited to my (virtual) book launch for Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star, on Tuesday, August 3, 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time, hosted by one of Denver's treasured indie bookstores, BookBar (where you can browse a wide assortment of books AND have a glass of wine and delicious munchies). Indeed, I wrote part of Boogie's story, pre-pandemic, sitting on one of their comfy couches. 

Here's the link to the event if you want to come. All are welcome! 

Swedish Death Cleaning? Or Swedish LIFE Cleaning?

I've been proceeding with great cheerfulness on my current project of "Swedish death cleaning" -  clearing out one's mountains of accumulated stuff NOW to spare your grieving children/heirs the arduous task of dealing with it later.

I not only donated hundreds of author copies of my own books, I also cleared out heaps of other books from my bookcases, using the rule of thumb that if I was never going to open this book again in this lifetime, I might as well let someone else enjoy it. 

I had a stylish friend come over and review the contents of my closet, helping me sort clothes into piles to be donated, to be altered for better fit, or to be actually worn once again (to give my same three or four favorite items a much-deserved rest). 

I tackled boxes in the attic of stuff that was once my mother's and once my husband's. 

I even found a home for a box of fabric left over from my quilting days (some thirty-five years ago), by offering it on a neighborhood email list. 

When I told my younger son about this new obsession, he didn't seem as relieved as I expected. In his usual quiet, matter-of-fact way, he said, "Mom, everybody has to clean out a house at some point in their lives, and you just do it." Certainly, however much I do now, there will be plenty for him to do later, so I'm grateful that he is already predisposed to face this task with good grace.

But his comment made me realize how much I'm doing this project not for him, but for ME.

I'm now entering the third third of my life. The curtain is about to go up on Act III. For the first time in decades, I have no caregiving responsibilities for anyone but myself. )Cue Diana Ross singing, "It's My Turn.") And I've been making some hard but good decisions about my professional future that are going to lead me in a radically new direction, as yet to be determined. 

Will I move to Paris? Or Latvia? Or somewhere totally unexpected? Will I stay here but fill my days in some entirely new way? The future is a blank slate for me, blanker than it's ever been before. 

It will be easier to write the next chapter of my story, whatever it may be, if I make not only emotional but physical space for it. (Give yourself the treat of watching my friend Elizabeth Dulemba's fabulous TED talk, "Is Your Stuff Stopping You?"). 

I am making room for something wonderful to happen.

So now I'm off to brave the box that has my high school papers in it... 

What Should An Author Do with Hundreds of Old Author Copies?: My Gigantic, Ginormous, Gargantuan Book Giveaway

I published my first book exactly forty years ago, in 1981. 

I'm publishing #61 (Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star) and #62 (The Lost Language) this year.

For each book published I get a contracted number of complimentary author copies, often in both hardcover and paperback (and sometimes in foreign language editions - ooh!). When a book goes out of print (as most of mine eventually do), I may get another batch of free copies as a consolation prize. Over the years, I've given away a lot of these books to friends, provided baskets full of them for silent auctions, and sold them at author appearances. 

But, after publishing 62 books over the course of four decades, I still have a LOT of copies left. 

I counted them up: the total came to 462 books, housed in a repurposed linen closet, and in cartons in my attic, and cartons under my desk. 

I've been thinking quite a bit these days about "Swedish death cleaning," the practice of getting rid of excess stuff so that your grieving children/heirs won't have to do this after you're dead and gone. I don't expect to be dead and gone for another twenty years, or more, but I figured I might as well Swedish-death-clean these books while I'm still spry and agile. 

So I dragged them all out, organized them in piles all over the floor, and pondered their fate.

On Facebook I solicited ideas for what to do with this many children's books, all by the same author. Dozens of people responded. I was hoping for - and received - wonderful suggestions of organizations that have programs already in place to distribute books to children in need of them (see below). I preferred this simpler approach to trying to do-it-myself, contacting schools (in the middle of the summer) or hospitals (toward the end of a pandemic), or wandering around town stuffing my 462 books into Little Free Libraries.  

What I hadn't expected was how many people said, "Send them to me!" "Send them to my classroom!" "Send them to my school!" "We'd love some!" "We want them all!" 

At first I thought I would apologize for not being able to make individual donations. All that packaging, all that labeling, all that lugging of padded mailers and boxes to the post office! I would just pick one or two of the wonderful big organizations and ship them everything.

But . . . I wanted to send a book or two at least to this high school friend's granddaughter, and this college friend's nephew, and this librarian I met at a conference, and this former student, and this neighbor from long ago, and this committed teacher....

So: I now have 22 smaller packages (padded mailers containing a couple of books and cardboard boxes with half a dozen, or eight, or ten books) in my car to take to the post office, plus four large and very heavy cartons. Don't you feel sorry for whoever is behind me in line?! And my floor is STILL covered with books!

I love sending these book children out into the world to everybody who is kind enough to welcome them. 

Let there be books for everyone! 

In case you have your own big heaps of books to share, here are some of the organizations mentioned in response to my social media post:

The Lisa Libraries (this was the one mentioned most)

Reach Out and Read (this is the link to the Colorado chapter; I believe it's a nationwide program)

Appalachian Literacy Initiative 

Books to Kids (donation program from local indie bookstore Second Star to the Right)

BookGive (donation program from local indie bookstore BookBar)

Bess the Book Bus

Let there be books for everyone! 

One Satisfying Strategy for Dealing with a Bad Book Review

Your book is coming out soon! Advanced Reader's Copies have been sent to reviewers! Any day you could get that very first review! 

And then you get it.

And it isn't, shall we say, quite the review you were hoping for.

Maybe it's scathing (I've gotten a few of those). 

Maybe it's lukewarm, damning the book, as Alexander Pope noted, with faint praise (I've gotten plenty of those).

Maybe it's full of praise but not quite enough praise to satisfy an author still yearning for undying fame (the story of my writing life).

What should you do?

My new hobby is to go on the book review website Goodreads and see what readers have to say about the greatest classics in the history of literature. I can't stop doing it.

War and Peace has a rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars. One reader called it "not quite as readable as some other BIG books I have read but still pretty good." Another reader, giving it three stars, called it "okay-ish."

Middlemarch has a rating of 3.98. "At times a slog, but not too bad in the end." "I just COULD NOT get into this book." "Some books are just meant to be read as part of a college class. This was one of those books."

Well, all right, maybe it's understandable that books of the past might command a less enthusiastic reception in the present. But when I look up books by my favorite contemporary authors, like Anne Tyler or Ann Patchett, there still are plenty of detractors.

My favorite novel by Pulitzer-Prize-winning Anne Tyler is Ladder of Years: Goodreads rating of 3.72. "The only book I ever bought on a business trip, then threw in the trash." "I did not relate well to the main character. . . so I dragged through the plot." "I thought maybe this book would be different from Tyler's others. I guess I'm just not into her." 

Ann Patchett's riveting best-seller Bel Canto gets 3.92 of 5. One reader gave it a tie for her prize for Most Disappointing Book of the Year. Another wrote, "I finish every book I start, yet I did not finish this one!"

I could give a thousand more examples - this is indeed my new hobby - but the lesson here is clear. Sara Lee may have used the advertising slogan "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee," but when it comes to books, there is no book on earth that somebody doesn't love.

Including books by me.

Including books by you.

But I think it's also true there is no book that is not loved by at least somebody. One book I read over and over again in childhood, The Magic Ring by Neta Lohnes Frazier, published in 1959, is all but forgotten now, with only four ratings (average 3.25) and three reviews (all positive enough) on Goodreads. But the child I once was loved it so!

Somewhere out there is a child who loves a book of yours this way. 

And a child who loves a book of mine this way, too. 

 

How Much Should Authors Beg for Reviews?

In his delightful autobiography, Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope reports his pledge that he would "have no dealings with any critic on my own behalf, I would neither ask for nor deplore criticism, nor would I ever thank a critic for praise, or quarrel with him, even in my own heart, for censure." In his view, solicited praise of any kind "must be an injustice to the public, for whose instruction .  . . such notices are intended." Even a "mild suggestion" that one would welcome a review can too easily descend into "crawling at the critic's feet" - compromising the integrity of the review process itself. 

What would Anthony Trollope, who died in 1882, have to say about the dogged efforts today's authors make to secure attention from prominent bloggers or rack up an impressive total of glowing reviews on internet sites like Amazon and Goodreads? 

This is the question I'm pondering as I decide how best to promote my new book child, The Lost Language, which I love with the doting affection older parents lavish on their late-life children.

Cozying up to prominent children's literature bloggers does seem very similar to cozying up to reviewers at the key journals for children's books, a tainting of reviewing integrity of the kind Trollope decries. But reader reviews are just . . . reader reviews. Some authors (not me!) receive thousands of them. And most authors nowadays make some effort to coax friends to post a few reviews early on to start a trend of adulation, in the same way that playwrights and directors might plant a few audibly appreciative chums in the audience on opening night. 

All I want is for everyone in the world to read my book and love it! And I want everyone in the world to shout its praises from the cyber-rooftops! I want to remind everyone I know that the single nicest thing one can do for an author - even more so than buying their latest book - is to go online and post how wonderful the book is. The review doesn't have to be long or elaborate, it just has to be gushing. Oh, please gush about my book! And please accompany that gushing with a rating of it as five stars on Amazon and Goodreads! 

Does this count as "crawling at the critic's feet"? Well, I guess it kind of sort of does. Maybe it's more like begging than crawling, the way my little dog just STARES at me until I go and get him his doggie treat. I'm staring at you, universe! I'm staring at you with huge pleading eyes and panting tongue hanging out! 

I've been doing a lot of gushing myself during the past year for friends' recent books. I've set myself the goal of spending a few minutes to dash off a review on Amazon and Goodreads as soon as I finish reading a friend's book. For a while I was posting a review every single week. Does this compromise the integrity of the review process in the way Trollope feared? Well, I can say truthfully that I do this only for books I really truly love. I don't lie in my reviews. But part of my love for a book undeniably has to do with my love for its author. I'm also someone who just finds it easy to love things. Still, if I say I loved it, then I really truly did. And I've been making a special effort to declare that love publicly. 

So, friends, if you love a book, really, truly love it, consider taking the time to review it online. The author will leap up with an ecstatically wagging tail and slobber all over you the next time she sees you.

I think - at least for now - this is the extent of my begging and crawling for reviews!

Waiting (and Waiting and Waiting) for Reviews

Much of a writer's life involves waiting. Much of ALL human life, I suppose, involves waiting. As Dr. Seuss wrote in Oh, The Places You'll Go, we can spend countless hours of our precious time here on this earth in this way:

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,/ or a plane to go or the mail to come,/ or the rain to go or the phone to ring,/ or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No/or waiting for their hair to grow./Everyone is just waiting. 

After first waiting to hear if my agent liked my new book, The Lost Language, and then waiting to hear if my editor liked it, and then waiting to hear her responses to round after round of revisions made for her suggestions, the book is well along in production. I have a final cover, which I adore and am sharing every chance I get (see below!). And I have electronic ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies), which are now being sent out for early reviews, for which I am NOW beginning to wait. 

Let me tell you: It is terrifying to wait for those first reviews. 

I doubt it's possible for me to have any reviews for at least another month, and maybe two. But then they will come, if I'm lucky (with so many thousands of books published each year, many don't achieve the honor of any reviews at all). The chief review organs for children's book are Kirkus, School Library Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and Horn Book. What these reviewers have to say about my book will make a huge difference to its success - or lack thereof. The BEST kind of review is a starred review (where here, it's not that the book gets x number of stars on some scale, but that the review itself has one big, beautiful star next to it.) 

I've had starred reviews on various books throughout the course of my career, but not very many. But I've never before written a book as good as this one. Some of my author friends get HEAPS of starred reviews: three, four, or even five for one single book. Sometimes, in a mildly irritating way, they will write Facebook posts that begin: "Pinch me! My book has just gotten its FIFTH starred review!" 

What if that irritating person this time is . . . ME? 

I remember hearing stories about Broadway actors huddling at Sardi's in the early morning hours after opening night, waiting for those newspaper reviews that would hit the streets at dawn: the reviews that would determine whether their show closed immediately or ran through hundreds of performances. At least those theater reviews came right away, and the anxious actors were together as they waited, presumably drinking some cheering or consoling adult beverages. I don't know when my reviews will come. Not yet. But soon? Or soonish?

Now, everyone knows that the wisest course of action for any writer while waiting to hear from agents, editors, or reviewers is simply to get busy writing the next book. Forget the first book! Pretend it never existed! Pour your whole heart into the new work-in-progress!

This is not easy to do. 

Dr. Seuss reassures us:

Somehow you'll escape/ all that waiting and staying./ You'll find the bright places/ where Boom Bands are playing.

But note that he doesn't give any guidance for HOW you will do this.

My own plan - well, not MY plan, exactly, but the universe's plan for me - is to stuff my summer so full of a whirlwind of fully vaccinated gaiety that I will have little time to sit hunched over my email waiting for reviews to trickle in. My two little granddaughters are coming for a week each month. My younger son and his girlfriend are coming from Chicago for three whole weeks. Multiple friends are coming through Boulder on cross-country road/train trips. I'm going on a girlfriend getaway of my own to Santa Fe next week and to a mini-reunion with five friends from my freshman-year college dorm to Newport, Rhode Island, in August. 

My whole life will be a bright place where Boom Bands are playing!

Or at least that's the plan. 

As I wait, and wait, and wait for those first crucial reviews....

 

The Danger (and Delight?) of Getting Your Hopes Up

This week I did a cover reveal for my forthcoming verse novel for middle-grade readers, The Lost Language, about two sixth-grade best friends who are trying to save an endangered language and in the process to save their own endangered friendship. The cover, by Kathrin Honesta, is absolutely gorgeous and received a torrent of Facebook love. 

I think this is the best book I've ever written. So does my writing group.  So does my agent. So does my editor. So do all the friends who have read it in manuscript form. And now I have this terrific cover, too. Things are looking good for this book! 

But you know what this means, don't you?

It means I am STARTING TO GET MY HOPES UP.

And hopes can be dangerous. Hopes can be DASHED. Actually, to be more precise, hopes can be CRUELLY DASHED. Hopes can be DOOMED TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

I've had hopes for books before, dreams that this time I'd have my "breakout book," the one that would move me from "midlist" to wider recognition from the world. This has never happened for the previous 61 books. Why would it happen now? After all, as they say, "the best predictor of the future is the past." 

On the other hand, they also say, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten," and this book is NOT what I've always done. It's my first novel in verse, which allowed me to find my best and truest voice. And it has an intriguing, never-done-before-by-anyone-else premise: the crusade by two kids to save an endangered language (spoiler alert: also a hope that will be cruelly dashed and doomed to disappointment).

I gave a guest sermon once at church that was all about hope and its dangers. Buddhist writer Pema Chodron has written that we need "to begin to get the knack of hopelessness." The Christian's "addiction to hope," according to Chodron, is only a guarantee of continued suffering. Chodron recommends getting decorative magnets that say "Abandon Hope" and sticking them onto our refrigerator doors. In support of her view, there is empirical social science research that hope actually makes people feel worse: happiness levels increase when unemployed people finally decide to give up the job search and call themselves "retired," even when sick people receive a terminal diagnosis and can abandon a futile and heartbreaking chase after a cure. 

But there is also social science research on the beneficial effects of hope, or at least of optimism, its close cousin. Psychologist Martin Seligman's study on optimism versus pessimism in one large insurance company showed that optimists achieved much greater career success, outselling pessimists by anywhere from 30 to 60 percent. It turns out that the old song is correct: The ant with high apple-pie-in-the-sky-hopes is much more likely to topple the rubber tree plant than the ant who doesn't even try because he already knows he's going to fail. 

As for me, I love that pleasurable feeling that the universe might - just might! - be sending something wonderful my way. It's lovely to put myself to sleep at night imagining in delicious detail what it would feel like collect a slew of starred reviews for this book or to get that early morning, late January phone call that my book has won the Newbery Medal. I can savor months of happy daydreams before cold, hard reality bonks me on the head. And the bonk will be a bonk whether I let myself luxuriate in hope now or not. 

In my favorite philosophy article ever, "The Will to Believe," by Williams James, he writes in defense of letting ourselves err on the side of hope rather than fear. He focuses on hope for the existence of God, but his arguments apply to other kinds of hope as well. Yes, if we hope, we risk disappointment, and this fear may cause us to guard our hearts against allowing ourselves to hope. The refusal to hope protects us from the fear of disappointment, but the fear of disappointment, James points out, equally denies us the pleasures of hope. We do not want to be duped, but James writes, “Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear?”

So I'm going to let myself hope that The Lost Language will be an enduring classic of children's literature, beloved of readers for generations to come! It may well be a dud instead. Given the number of books published each year versus the number of books that achieve immortality, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of dud-dom. But how lovely it is to tarry for a while in the landscape of hope. 

I'm hoping hard right now for my sweet little book.