Beginnings are hard. (Thanks, Substack.)
Is it wrong to start a Substack out of guilt?
When my first picture book, How to Be a Rock Star, came out, I hoovered up the internet’s wisdom about marketing for authors. Create a website! Get on social media! Join a debut group! Make videos! Start a newsletter! I dutifully created a website, complete with a spot where a person might sign up for a very hypothetical newsletter.
But here’s the thing: I hate talking about myself. I don’t want people even glancing in my direction, if I’m honest. Given a choice, I’d be hiding under blankets in the dark recesses of an abandoned cave. (Although, a cave with snacks and wifi, let’s be real.)
So the thought of writing a newsletter about my work gave me cold sweats, and I just … didn’t write it. Whenever someone signed up for this nonexistent newsletter, I felt a twinge of guilt for the newsletter I never sent, the book I inadequately promoted. I mourned the version of me who might write newsletters.
My book didn’t fly off the shelves – probably because I never sent that newsletter. (Those seven people really would have moved the needle.)
At the same time, I left my job working for Big Media, where I sometimes got to write about books. I was happy to move on, but had to disappoint people who wanted me to write about their books for a website where I no longer worked.
I still get to interview authors about their books at my new job. And I have to tell you, sometimes those authors look like hunted animals. It turns out, people who write for a living don’t always love talking to strangers! I am not the only author who prefers a keyboard to a microphone.
So to loosen things up, at my first red carpet book event, we decided to ask writers not what they were wearing, but what they were reading. Suddenly, authors wanted to talk. Not all of them – and not always smoothly – but for the most part, these authors enjoyed talking about other people’s books.
And that got me thinking about my newsletter. Authors like talking about other people’s books! And I bet the authors whose books I want to talk about would feel good talking about even more books they love.
So here I am, sending a newsletter. Every so often (when I come out of my cave) I will ask an author whose book I love to tell me about books they love. TBR lists will grow. Books will spiral into the hands of young readers. And I can scratch newsletter guilt off my list.
Check out my book recommendations on Bookshop.