by Barbara Poelle
Can it pul-LEASE be spring already? Is there some sort of fairy or patron saint or muse or something of spring? If so I would like to find her and knock her down and choke her and scream SPRING NOW in her face over and over as I rapped her skull against the pavement. At least I am heading to Sluethfest in sunny Florida on Thursday so I can fake it. Also, Husband comes home tonight for like 17 minutes before he is off again and I swear if that plane is even four minutes delayed, someone is getting slapped. Maybe a flight attendant, maybe Ruth Buzzi. But someone.
Hang on, I am seeing a pattern here. No, no, nothing to do with my unchecked rage issues, those are coming along nicely. I am talking about anticipation.
Anticipation is my funny bedfellow, because it combines two things I refuse to participate in: patience and things outside my control. But for whatever reason, even if I can’t stand its components, the whole I can swallow as easily as a tooth punched out in a bar fight. In fact, most of my career is based on anticipation (um, and a little bit on bar fights). Market trends, pub month projections, buyers climate, etc, that’s all about anticipating and I roll around in that kinda thing as I would in a tub of noodles. But sometimes, with my clients, I can see anticipation backfire on them like a fat man at the Sausalito Chili Festival.
See, when you sign with an agent you are all wheeee! Pop the champagne and call your friends! And your agent sells your book! Wooo hooo! Dump the vodka down your throat and drunk dial an ex! And then your pub date arrives and…um, why isn’t the paperboy genuflecting and how often can you work, “well, since my book pub’d today…” into normal conversation before no one ever wants to talk to you again?
Unfortunately, with a lot of debut novels, there just isn’t enough in the budget to roll out the publicity machine. (I know you have only heard of this machine, but I can tell you, it looks like that scary tunnel digging thing in that scene from Labyrinth that almost crushes Sarah and Hoggle.) So with all the anticipation attached to a debut novel, there's a very real let down thing that happens when it just sort of plops out there into the world like one of those random shoes on the side of the highway. (DUDE, what IS the DEAL with those random SHOES?!?!?) Also, if you have a multi-book contract, you’ve probably sort of been numbed to the first book because, by the time it hits shelves, you’re buried deep in the shenanigans that make up that demon second book.
Look, here’s the thing, no matter what kind of launch you have for book one, what you need to do is take the “anti” out of anticipation. This can be a powerful tool in your writer arsenal, this cipation. Besides, just think: you can't have "cipation" without "sip," so get to drinking. Wheee!
PS. Oh stop. She’s fine.
