A Dose of Perspective on Book Launch Day

Why I don’t over-burden the day with expectations

The wildfires raging in California have displaced thousands and destroyed countless homes, businesses, schools, even entire villages.

Massive flooding in Spain, the conflict in the Middle East, and other disasters both natural and manmade are causing untold misery around the world.

Racism, sexism, and poverty persist.

The future of American democracy is in very real peril.

And today, my book comes out. (And hey, it’s not just a book, it’s a tool!)

No doubt, today someone else’s book comes out too. Lots of ‘someones,’ in fact, because books are typically published on Tuesdays.

All by way of saying: Launching a book is not the biggest thing in an author’s life. It’s not the start of an author’s career, not a promise of good things to come (or bad), not a significant milestone, at all, really.

I’m not ‘mad at it.’ It’s fine. It’s good. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad the day has arrived.

But it’s not the Second Coming, either.

These days, books exist concurrently in virtual and real forms in a perpetual past, present, and future. Books may be pre-ordered before there’s a jot of ink on paper. The idea of the book is often shared long before the book itself is conjured into being. The book itself is real before it’s real in the guise of advanced readers’ copies (ARCs), which proliferate like bunnies, making the book seem already published, when it’s not…but it sort of…is.

Moreover, authors typically market their books months ahead of the pub date. Which means, long before the book is officially issued, it’s already shoved in people’s faces online; discussed in blogs; blabbed about on podcasts; and hyped with laudatory blurbs from other authors. If nothing else, the cover is out there.

Book-launch day is practically an after-thought—a term of convenience. Today, the publisher or distributor (or whomever) will print copies or assemble e-book electrons on demand. And every day thereafter. (Only it probably isn’t literally ‘today.’)

Woo-hoo.

The book needs to be seen, tended, promoted, and loved the day after launch day, and all the days after that.

So as milestones go, book-launch day feels less rewarding, to me, than finishing the book; finding a home for the book; and scoring a high-profile review. Oh, and getting positive feedback from readers! That beats launch day every time!

This rant, if you want to call it that, is in response to the trend amplified on social media, where book launches are treated like Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one, and then some. As if the louder you trumpet the date your book drops, the more attention you’ll receive and the more books you’ll sell.

But that’s not how the complex, noisy, and over-crowded world of publishing and marketing books works. The pub date itself really isn’t all that relevant in the grand scheme.

As strategic media coach and author Mary O’Donohue reminded me recently about de-pressurizing the launch, “Your book is not egg salad. It isn’t going to spoil on day one.”

So, anyway, three cheers for book-launch day!

Now, what’s for lunch? (Egg salad, perhaps?)

And when should I expect world peace to break out?

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Yeah, you can order Wrangling the Doubt Monster on Amazon or wherever books are sold. It’s the little book every self-doubting creative needs right now. I’m proud of it. I believe in its message. But I felt that way yesterday and will still feel that way tomorrow.

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