I feel like I have to pre-empt the following with a “Ptui, ptui, ptui—bli ayin hara!” qualifier.
Prepping for the release of HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN, my latest book, was a lot of work. The publisher and I brainstormed who to send ARCs to, we secured a bunch of reviews and interviews, and I posted almost daily to try to drum up sales.
For the first couple week, sales were pretty good. Not fantastic, but okay. Trying to sell books past the week of release is…challenging.
I’m pleased with how my book turned out, but there are so many other beautiful books out there, and I’m afraid that my book will be lost in the crowd. Sure aliens are great, and the lesson (about the mitzvahs of hachnassat orchim and taking care of strangers) is really important. But there are a lot of authors with new books out trying to get in front of readers.
Also, I have that “Book just came out, and I need to worry about the next book,” feeling. There’s an idea floating around the writing world that a successful author has a new book coming out every couple years, at minimum. I’m writing and submitting but keep getting one rejection after another. I just keep writing and submitting, but I’d really like to have another book under contract by now.
It’s much nicer to have books published than to have no books published. But it’s also not an easy business and staying power is…hard to find.
Anyway, to focus on the positive:
- Reviews have been good.
- I feel proud of the way the book turned out (shout out again to Shirley Waisman for her illustrations and to Lili Rosenstreich for shepherding this project for Kalaniot).
- I really appreciate my writing group members, friends, and all the people who reviewed my book or posted about it on social media. It’s really great to have such a supportive book community.
ka Dreifus
Rebecca Klempner 