Not Another Newsletter!

Those Lyrics Are a Real Earworm, Huh?

But I'm hearing them these days with a twist.

I have to back up a bit to explain.

Some of you know that I had a very long road to publication. I wrote seven novels over the course of ten years before my eighth finally sold and became my debut. That book had been roundly rejected by publishers, but throughout my years (and years) of trying to get published, I'd been reaching out to authors whose work I admired. Letting them know how much their books meant to me, and supporting them in ways that I could.

One such author was good enough to read my unsold novel, find it gripping, and pass it along to her editor who made an offer. Even though someone else at that publisher had turned the same book down six months before.

The novel went on to win the Mary Higgins Clark award and a bunch of other nice stuff and pretty well prove that just because a book is getting rejected doesn't mean it won't find its way. So if you're garnering rejections, by all means learn from them and hone your craft. But don't assume your work isn't worthy. Actually, if you're in the discouragement phase of your astral sign for anything you're trying to achieve, take heart. I was about as down and disappointed as could be before a door blew wide open.

So Then What Happened?

As the pub date for my “first” novel finally drew near, my husband and I did the next logical thing. We rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, and took our kids out of 1st and 3rd grades to “car-school” them on the road as we crisscrossed the country, meeting many of the booksellers and librarians and book club leaders and even book bloggers who had supported me during my long road to publication. I worked with a terrific independent publicity firm that assisted in arranging many of the things I did.

And it was magical and wonderful and still the touchstone my family returns to now that those car-schooled kids are in college. If you'd like to see what life on the bookish road was like, there are two fun music videos on my website.

Point being, I love the face-to-face.

I believe it's even more relevant as the world goes increasingly digital and virtual. A hundred Likes can't duplicate one reader standing before you, jabbing their finger at a page of your book to indicate the twist that blew them away. And then taking back their signed copy as if you'd handed them a jewel.

I met many of you reading this newsletter right now out there on the road!

So here's the first twist of the lyrics stuck in my head. Sing it with me.

I'm a Bookish Girl

Books provided shelter and respite and even safety for me as a child. They formed walls around the difficult parts of my life. I remember in 6th grade, all my friends turned on me. This is a fairly ubiquitous experience for middle school girls, and it can be vicious and brutal. In class, I could muddle through, pretend that no one was talking to me because the teacher was speaking. But at lunch a spotlight shone on the fact that I had no place to sit. To be. So I fled to the library. I wasn't allowed there during lunch period, but the librarian pretended not to see me huddled in the stacks, reading.

I will forever love that woman. Shout out to the school librarian at Glenfield.

Part of why “the world's longest book tour,” as Shelf Awareness called it, meant so much to me is because of the resonance book-filled places had for me extending all the way back to childhood.

But here's the second line of those lyrics running through my head.

In an Amazon World

Today my new novel, The Usual Silence, comes out from Thomas and Mercer. Signing a two book deal with them was another example of a door bursting wide open for me. To celebrate, my publisher is hosting a Goodreads giveaway. Enter here for a chance to win one of 100 copies of the book.

The creative experience I've gotten to have so far—the meeting of the minds with not one but two brilliant, imaginative editors, as many deep dives into this novel as a SCUBA diver makes into a pristine sea—well, it's been life-changing.

But writing is a business as well as an art. An industry that we all need to learn. Which can be a slog, requiring years and years and years to gain even the most glancing understanding, but basically boils down to this extremely complicated microeconomic (macroeconomic? Who knows? Probably an economist) principle, which, to paraphrase James Veitch, goes something like this:

And the more books you sell, the longer you'll get to keep writing and publishing.

In the month after Thomas and Mercer made my book a First Reads selection, I had some staggering firsts as an author. The Usual Silence hit #2 in Books, #1 in domestic suspense, psychological thrillers, kidnapping, and serial killer fiction. Whaaat? I didn't even realize some of those categories applied.

This novel marks the start of a series that got imagined into being when my publisher took me out to a beautiful breakfast in an art deco hotel and we talked books for hours.

I love and admire people who devote their lives to books because I know what those books can mean. The pleasures they proffer, the very lives they can save. Like mine.

Who are they? Publishers and editors and bookstore owners and their staff and librarians and book club members and book reviewers and critics and bloggers—everyone involved in the whole joyous ecosystem that is books. Readers, most of all.

But nowadays they're also the IT brainiacs and digital coders and corporate monoliths whom we might not normally associate with the magic of reading, but who get books into the hands of people in ways never before seen.

My hope is that these elements can live in concert together: the curators who fill gorgeous spaces with treasures for readers to discover, along with the winged angels who deliver books and other needed and wanted items right to our doors.

Books lift us up and lift us out. From sixth grade daymares to far worse situations. I once heard from a dear reader whose parent read my third novel while in hospice.

For the alchemy of reading, I am grateful.

To every single person who has supported me to this point, my thanks and love.