Read to the end, and I promise this photo will make sense!
On Wednesday, May 28, it will be a year since my first book was published! Just as it seems crazy to me that we are 5/12 of the way through 2025, I cannot believe that 365 days have passed since my U.S. pub date! So, one year in, a few thoughts on being an author.
Publishing a book is a massive feat. I had worked in publishing (albeit in a different era), so I knew how much is involved—which led me to imagine that once I had one in stores, I would have no other purpose in life beyond promoting the book. Sit next to me on a train? “Would you like to see my book?” Pop by to read the meter? “Would you like to see my book?” Serve me in a restaurant? “Would you like to see my book?”
I didn’t do that—I don’t think. We don’t even have a copy in the living room. (Now, put your head into my office, and you’ll see a whole shelf of them, along with a framed version of the New York magazine “Approval Index” that had A PLACE OF OUR OWN at the intersection of Brilliant and Highbrow—a tad more brilliant than the Booker-nominated (and amazing) Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden, and a hair less highbrow than Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Roommates, one of my favorite novels of 2024, which I am shocked hasn’t won tons of prizes.) I pictured myself having a copy of my book to hand at all times and whipping it out at the slightest provocation. That hasn’t happened, but maybe that will change (in the UK at least) when the paperback comes out on June 5—a lighter load!
I guess I should acknowledge that it’s possible that a whiff of internalized homophobia is at play here. Maybe I’d be less reluctant to thrust my book in people’s faces if doing so weren’t outing me and opening up the possibility of people reacting negatively. I imagine my pal Henry Grabar pulling Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World out of his bag every time he encounters someone having parking problems without encountering that particular concern!
Another surprise is that I wasn’t as obsessed with sales figures as I imagined I would be. Maybe that would be different if I were published by one of the presses that provides authors with access to a website that displays sales on an ongoing basis. (Though it’s surely better for my productivity that mine doesn’t!) I can only see Amazon numbers, which I don’t find particularly useful. (For me, at least, it just shows a “sales rank”—if you’re in the Top 100, I’m sure that’s really motivational and revealing, but sadly, I never was.) Via Amazon’s Author Central site, I do have access to BookScan weekly sales reports, which is interesting (and I definitely look at that tab each week), but it doesn’t get my engine running.
I do look at Goodreads ratings and reviews on an almost daily basis. (Goodreads has a bad reputation, but to me, it provides the most direct reflection of reader interest and response.) Of course, I agree with all the good reviews—but even the slightly less gushing ones are helpful, if only because the criticisms balance each other out—some will say there is too much of Thing X, while just as many others say there’s too little!
Even though I didn’t recognize the names of early positive Goodreads reviewers, I figure the early takes were more likely to come from people who already knew and liked my work (along with the extra-keen readers who sign up for programs that give them early access to books). So it has been gratifying to see that the average rating has stayed about the same—there has been a slight decline since immediately after publication, but the overall rating is still up around 4.21 (out of a possible 5) even after 600+ people have spoken. (It is also clear that nonfiction books get many fewer ratings than novels do.)
The last thing I’ll mention is how much of a thrill it is to encounter people who have read the book—interviewers, friends, complete strangers. Last week I saw a social media post by John Cassidy, New Yorker writer and author of a new 650-page book about capitalism, saying that he’d really enjoyed a recent interview where it was clear the journalist had read the book, which he recognized was no small thing. I KNOW THAT FEELING! As someone who has conducted a whole bunch of author interviews, I know how much time and effort is involved in doing that reading (even when it’s a fantastic book—we all have about six jobs these days, even if we’re only getting one paycheck!), so I do appreciate it. It’s an amazing compliment. (I also know that some people—especially radio hosts who do multiple author interviews a week—can’t read every book, certainly not every word, themselves, so no shade on those who get help preparing for conversations.)
OK, one last thing: THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! Thanks to the people who hosted me (it was just a year ago that Paula and Jack were gearing up to have me stay in their homes for way longer than is polite), to all the people who came to events (it was amazing to see, chat with, and bum rides from people who read this newsletter), to booksellers who have put up with my offering to sign copies of the book that I find on their shelves, to the folks who interviewed me or reviewed the book on Goodreads or elsewhere, to the blurbers and the well-wishers and all the amazing professionals whose hard work improved the book and its reception.
This is starting to seem like an Oscar acceptance speech, so I’ll stop there, except to say that I can’t wait to do it again!
The U.K. paperback cover
BOOK NEWS: The U.K. paperback version of A PLACE OF OUR OWN will be out on June 5. Until 11:59 p.m. on June 4, you can get a 25% discount by ordering from the Virago store! (No U.S. paperback plans just yet.)
UPCOMING EVENTS: On Wednesday, June 4, I'll be appearing with Jane Cholmeley, one of the owners of London's Silver Moon Bookshop (1984-2001) and author of A Bookshop of One's Own at Edinburgh's Lighthouse Bookshop. (More info.) And if you’ll be in Manchester on Wednesday, June 25, I’ll be on the panel “(Re)imagining Queer Forebearers” at the “Pride in Writing” event at Social Refuge in Ancoats. More info about this fall’s visit to the Pacific Northwest coming soon.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Last week we went on a day trip to Dundee—and not only so I could get my photo taken next to the statues of Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx—characters from the British comic The Dandy, which I read as a kid (along with The Beano and others). Of course our first stop was the V&A, where I found the most amazing item in the museum store: a used chore coat in a beautiful bright blue color, which actually fits me! Apparently, the store first started to offer used items of clothing after used kimonos accompanying an exhibition of kimonos went down a treat—so when they were preparing their current exhibition on “Garden Futures,” they sourced some used chore coats! The price was higher than you’d expect to find in a thrift store—but as the owner of at least two other (far less striking and worse-fitting) chore coats, I was very happy to pay it, and I was amazed to encounter them alongside the branded pencils. (What exactly am I recommending, you may be asking. Why, checking out museum shops, of course!)
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