12 Comments

I’m also a morning person. If there were more 8am book launch events (or any) I’d go to them!

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I would also come to a breakfast book launch!!

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author

i know it's cool to stay up late, i am just sleepy

8 am book launch sounds perfect tbh

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But we write for ourselves, don't we? It's lovely when your book is published, lovely if people like it, but it's not the point, right? I'm trying to understand being embarrassed. Maybe I'm too old to remember. Is it about revealing things about yourself you don't even want to know? I learned a while ago that the more vulnerable you allow yourself to be, the stronger you become. I love to do readings, parties are not my strong suit.Not just book parties, parties in general. Books are only embarrassing if you give a shit what people think. What am I getting wrong?

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It's the performative aspect, the fact that you have to talk about your book in public to other people, the social media, the book promo. I would prefer to just drop books into a hole so others can read them remotely. It's not about the book. The book itself feels great. But publishing it is a kind of dread-inducing experience, I think, or can be.

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Okay, I get that My book Still Life At Eighty was picked up from the original publishrer ,a bookstore here in Woodstock, The Golden Notebook, by Scribner's and today iwa it's pub datel, and tomorrow I have an interview on the radio with the brilliant and funny Joe Donohue,l but I can't rememebr anything speciific about the book. I've been so wrapped up writing the one I'm writing, and my memory is shot. I wrote it in 2022. So I have to cram tonight as if for an exam to see what I said. So that's not embarrassing exactly, but I don't want to be asking Joe, "er Joe, , what page is that on?" or something. Mostly because I love Joe. If the book were fresh i my mind I'd be okay.

The Golden Notebook did a beautiful job, but one man can't so waht an entire publishing house can, and forgot to send it out for those early reviews. Scribners did.

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I love the idea of a home-improvement/skill learning book launch!

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author

Practical skills ftw!

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I'm not super extroverted but I like being out in the world. I liked doing book events. And, even so, I wanted to crawl in a hole after every single one. The fun didn't cancel out the humiliation somehow. I'm as afraid of success as I am of failure, so it's a real lose-lose.

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I feel this. I am def afraid of success. 😩

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Oct 13Liked by Emily Maloney

I tried the completely fail at marketing myself. Writing is so much more sensible to me

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some parts of the marketing are ok, but book launches in particular feel debilitating for some reason

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