My book is out!!, + going on tour and television
Hey all,
When I started writing this newsletter it said something like: my book is coming out next week!
Then time passed, and in another draft it said: my book is out this week!
You can guess the rest: we’ve tumbled right past my book came out last week, and now we're well into my book came out six weeks ago. So here we go, deep breath:
My book came out six weeks ago!
The Husbands is now available in bookshops, and as an ebook, and as an audiobook, and in libraries, and basically in any way you might plausibly want to acquire a book except maybe via charity shop bookshelf section, might be a bit soon for that, although I dunno, if you get lucky there might be some advance copies in a few of those as well. (My local Oxfam is always jammed with "not for resale" proof copies of sometimes-still-unreleased books, and I feel a thrill of illicit glamour every time I buy one.)
I'm not going to try to catch up on everything that's happened in the last six weeks - there's some pictures of highlights over on Instagram - but what I am going to do, I think, is talk a little bit about going on a book tour, which is a thing I am recently returned from, and which I was surprised to find I loved.
BOOK TOUR
So, importantly, I did seven different events over ten days - which is a fair few, but it's not one of the intense month-long new-town-every-night tours that you see some writers doing. And Doubleday organised everything meticulously; I don't know whether that's what usually happens, or whether I lucked out with my publishers.
But the thing I found most surprising about being on tour was that it was... I dunno. Quite easy, emotionally speaking.
I was a little anxious about it in advance. Like: would anyone come to the events? If they didn't, would I deal with it with charm and grace or would I be visibly saddened? Would I run out of capacity to talk to strangers? Would I get bored and lonely and talk to strangers too much? Would I miss a plane? Would I have a bad time squishing into a new little plane seat each day? Would my bank cards stop working? Would I lose my passport?
But it was actually all fine, because of the glory of Schedule.
Publishers - it turns out - do not trust writers to figure out how to get to an airport or to know what time to leave their hotel. So if they set up a tour for you, you get provided with a detailed document about exactly what to do when, and from that point onwards everything is very straightforward because you subsume yourself entirely to Schedule. Schedule tells you when to leave the hotel. Schedule tells you how to get to the airport. Schedule tells you what bookshop to go to and who you will speak to once you're there. Schedule doesn't leave much time for anything other than travelling, sleeping or speaking at a bookshop, and so you have very few decisions to make: all you have to do is comply with Schedule. Usually I find going to an airport and travelling somewhere such an annoying kerfuffle, but it turns out the thing I find an annoying kerfuffle isn't so much the process - it's having to operate my own will to get through it, to decide when to leave home, how to get there, to remember to check in in time to pick a seat that isn't terrible, etc etc etc. Schedule does all that for you. Schedule gets you to the airport with enough time that if there's a 45 minute wait for security, it doesn't matter: you just stand there for 45 minutes, and then eventually you get through.
And then sometimes Schedule reveals a free couple of hours, or even a free day, and I found that suddenly I had all this... will? Decision-making power? I had no desire to just lie on the bed and read my phone all day. Because I hadn't had to use up any impetus on the important things, it was there for popping out to a bookshop or going to get tapas or having a nice little walk.
And the bookshops were all so lovely, the conversation partners were a delight, there were old friends and new friends and people who'd read the book and people who just happened to be in the shop when I started talking and decided to stay. After four or five events it started to feel like I could keep it up for ever, like there was no reason ever to stop, that this was existence now.
BEING ON TELEVISION LOL
The other thing that I did while I was in the US that was new to me was: I went on live television.
I was less worried about this than the tour. Because: look, any live television show creates so much content. They interview a BUNCH of people who aren’t used to being on television. So they know how to manage everything, how to get you to stand in the right place, when to tell you what to look at, how to structure questions so they can shut you off if you start rambling.
The show wants things to run smoothly. The show will keep you safe. It's like Schedule, but it's Show instead: you just enter it at one end, a little marble rolling through, carried by the professionalism and constant practice and attention of Show, and out the other end you pop. On The Today Show, for their Read With Jenna picks they even make a little 30-second trailer explaining the basic premise of the book, and they play it before they start the interview. To make sure everyone is on the same page and - I can only assume - to prevent writers from trying to give a plot summary and instead rambling intensely for the entirety of their timeslot.
Plus they do a very generous thing, which is: they bring a book group in, and get that book group to ask some of the questions. And this is incredible for a couple of reasons, and one of them is that the book group is made up of normal people. It's normal people who've done their hair and ironed their clothes and been meticulous with their makeup, sure, but they're not professional presenters.
So you get questions from this group of people who have read the book recently and are excited to chat about it, which is great in itself. And also: you do not exist solely in the overwhelming glow of the television presenters. Hoda and Jenna were so lovely, and had such fun questions, and I'm pretty sure I made them look at pictures of my cats after the show finished though honestly it's a bit of a blur. I don't mean to suggest that they're not, you know, real people who exist in the world. But there is a level of precision and charisma and shine and fluency and confidence that's just a requirement of going on television professionally! And of course that's not something that writers are necessarily going to be able to emulate! So it's a wonderful thing the show does, to provide a context in which other normal people also exist.
AND MORE BEING ON TELEVISION?
The other television thing I did while in the US was: I pretended to be a bartender while standing in the corner of Watch What Happens Live, a recap show where host Andy Cohen and his guests discuss the events of various reality television programmes. During each episode of the show, there’s also one person - in this case, me - who stands in the corner behind a bar. And this “bartender” just hangs out, and answers between 1 and 3 questions about whatever they're there to promote.
This was so so odd and so enjoyable. Plus there was an incredible dressing room! Fresh tulips! An array of snacks! (I almost broke into the mini toblerones and then I spotted the “nougat in your teeth on television” trap just in time.) The production staff didn't let me actually make any drinks myself while I stood at the bar, but they did make me a very good Aperol spritz.
Once filming began, the screens showing the playback were just within my line of sight, and so whenever I appeared on them - a little cut to me cheering or clapping or laughing - my brain would go "oooh, it's me!" and I'd flick my eyes to look and then I'd remember that I shouldn't do that and I'd look away again, just this little repeating whoops!!! flurry that I only managed to train myself out of as the whole thing was ending. And for reasons that now escape me I demanded that the host spell Massachusetts, something I am not myself reliably capable of doing. But other than that, I think it went nicely!
Afterwards one of the guests, a nice young man who appears on a television show about a fancy boat, said to me encouragingly: you did so well. For someone who isn't a television professional, he meant. For a writer. What a beautiful gift of low expectations.
This tour-and-television fortnight was, perhaps, the opposite of writing a book. I was often surrounded by other people, I knew where I was going at all times, everyone's expectations were delightfully, charmingly low, someone was always in charge, there was a big set of instructions to follow. I loved it.
READING REPORT
I've been continuing to read a bunch of debuts, but the thing I want to talk about HERE is a book called On Tap Dancing by Paul Draper, a compilation of essays written for "Dance Magazine" between 1954 and 1963. I found this collection in a second-hand bookshop in Los Angeles for $6. I had forgotten how much I love incredibly specific instructional books for skills that I neither have nor want (mime! animation using 1960s technology! growing vegetables!). Here's a random-ish extract from the book that would have been genuinely useful if I'd read it at the start of my tour instead of the end:
If you can also find out something about the audience, you should do so. Is it a dance audience? Are you part of a show which has relatively little to do with dancing? Is it a benefit? A matinee? Is the audience assembled on a weekday or a Sunday? All these things constitute data from which you must draw conclusions. An electronic brain would be helpful, but more expensive than the average dancer can afford. Feed the data into your own brain and arrive at some decision about whether the audience will be happy or sad, elated or despondent, high or low. Relate this decision to your intent toward the audience, and then decide how you are going to walk out on that stage, or dance out, or be found on stage in a set pose.
Once the curtain is up you don't have another chance to begin whatever it is you are going to do. The initial contact cannot be recreated. You can develop your relationship, you can lead it along many different paths, but you can neither undo nor change that first magic moment.
So much of the book is like this, specific to Draper’s area of interest but also broadly applicable. If anyone has any recommendations for other really specific instruction manuals or how-to books that I might enjoy, please let me know.
GARDEN REPORT
Well it's May again so that means it's time to buy more ladybirds from the internet and place them on the roses with a little paintbrush. This year's ladybirds are in the fridge now, chilling. What a treat I have lined up for me this evening.
KITTEN REPORT
Ugh they're still perfect. Madeleine still sometimes won’t eat her lunch until you pick her up and give her a little cuddle.
Okay that's all for this time, speak soon,
Holly