On Letting a Novel Go
Punctuating, paragraphing, Reddit's concern, & putting a book in the world
Preordering is the most powerful way you can support a forthcoming book, and you can preorder Small Rain anywhere books are sold. Here are some links: Bookshop, Powells, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Amazon. There are even more links at the Macmillan page. Small Rain is out September 3.
Here’s a writerly dilemma: on one hand, our need for recognition is infinite and so publicity departments have never done enough; on the other, we’re infinitely terrified of being seen and so anything they do is an attack. This puts publicists in a tough spot. Writers, I understand that we are broken neurotic messes, but these are impulses we should resist. One of the luckiest aspects of my “writing career,” if that’s what this is, is that I’ve had, in both the US and the UK, not only very brilliant publicists, but also the same publicists, for all three of my books. This is almost unheard of, and I’m hugely grateful to both of them: Brian Gittis at FSG, and Camilla Elworthy at Picador. The highlight of publishing What Belongs to You was belting Rihanna with Cam (a very beautiful singer, and generally speaking the most culturedly brilliant person I’ve ever met) during a long car ride in Scotland during my UK tour. I didn’t get to go to the UK for Cleanness, thanks to Covid; I’m happy that I will be spending some time there in September for the launch of Small Rain. Watch this space for more details.
Anyway, review copies of my next novel are in, and if you write about books for print or online media I would love for you to have a copy. The best way to make that happen is to write Brian at brian.gittis@ fsgbooks.com. (UK readers, Camilla is on Twitter; you can reach out to her there.) Let him know where you might pitch a review or other coverage, as well as your address. I’m not sure how many print copies there are, but he should be able to get you either one of those or an e-galley.
I remember the first time I saw an ARC of my first novel; I’m pretty sure it was the closest I’ve ever come to fainting. This was back in summer 2015, I had just graduated from Iowa, and I was in the FSG offices—my first time there, I think, so already a heady experience. I remember being at the desk of my editor’s then-assistant, and I remember him turning slightly away and then, without any warning, turning back with the book in his hand. I was suddenly lightheaded; without exactly intending to I found myself sitting in a chair that was happily nearby. Until that point, even after the text had been designed and set, it still existed as pages that came out of my printer, not so different from the various drafts spat out over the previous four years. Now here it was, pages bound between a cover, a real book. It was overwhelming.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to To a Green Thought to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.