always lurking

perceive me if you dare

Hi, dear readers!

I have a confession: I’m not very good at social media.

Or at least, I don’t think I’m very good at social media. I’m really not all that sure. I don’t update my Instagram as often as I should, I got the hell out of dodge (aka X-formly-known-as-Twitter), I’m sparsely on Threads, and this newsletter? Well, as you can see I haven’t exactly updated it in a few months.

So I think I can say with a little confidence that I’m not particularly adept at the whole social game. Which is wild because, once upon a time, I was the social media coordinator for a manga publisher and I was Certifiably Not Terrible (tm) at my job. I’m good at social media for other people/corporations, but myself?

Ha.

Hahahahaha.

There was the article from Vox called “Everyone’s a Sellout Now” where journalist Rebecca Jennings goes in-depth into the culture of marketing your novel. It made a lot of waves in the author sphere, where colleagues agreed and disagreed and highlight important nuances about the whole author gig.

I think it’s an interesting article, and I also think that no one size fits all.

Honestly, the population at large—including authors ourselves—have romanticized the whole “hermit author appears once every ten years to drop a book on an editor’s desk and then disappears again” thing. I mean, I have seen Secret Window. I know what happens to the hermit author in question.

To some extent, authors have always had to promote their own work. George didn’t become Lord Byron by swimming the English channel with a cleft foot, after all. Charles Dickens did public readings for charity before he could turn a profit. On the other hand, both Mary Shelley and Jane Austen first published anonymously because of the public reception of female writers.

I think there is always, and always has been, some reach into the social sphere for authors, whether it is to find and foster a community or to sell more books. (Maybe a little bit of both.)

And for me? I’ve never been very good at being seen online. Ever since I was twelve on my parent’s old compaq computer, I’ve lurked. I’m a lurker. I will forever lurk. First, on message boards. Then LiveJournal. Then Twitter, Instagram, a thousand other social media sites that have come and gone in the last two decades.

I’m good at lurking. Practiced, even.

I am the Olympic gold medalist of being a fly on the wall.

So, I really only have myself to blame for developing the art of standing-in-a-corner-at-a-party-bobbing-my-head-and-hoping-no-one-perceives-me.

And anyway—I’m bad at this but getting better. Communication is hard. Figuring out how to communicate is hard. There really isn’t a handbook. Whenever I open up substack to write a new newsletter, I’m struck with the paralyzing fear of not knowing how to do it. What do I say? What’s interesting? What won’t waste people’s time or inbox storage space? How should I format this newsletter to be optimal for dispensing information? Should I do bullet points? Do I need to put a subscribe now button somewhere in the middle like everyone else does?

I still don’t know the rules to this whole social media game, and the thing is there really aren’t any? It’s a figure-it-out-as-you-go sort of thing, person by person, and lemme tell you that does quite a number on this old moth-eaten brain of mine.

Hurrah for late-stage capitalism.

Oh, I guess I should add that subscribe now widget before I forget—

Amazing.

Okay, so some updates:

First off, A Novel Love Story is getting an exclusive edition with Barnes & Noble! No worries if you aren’t the gotta catch ‘em all kind, though! Same cover, same story, but there is an essay in the back about romance tropes that keep us fed at night. (And a word search! Who doesn’t love a good word search? I promise it’ll be easier to solve than the NYT Connections game.)

I’m so excited about this essay. It’s one I’ve thought about for a while, about why we love the tropes we love, and how genre fiction — and genre romance — are like comfort food.

Also, speaking of Barnes & Noble, this is such a wild sight to see whenever I go to the website—

I still can’t believe it. How lovely. How impossibly lovely.

Speaking of A Novel Love Story, head over to Goodreads to enter into a giveaway!

And while we’re on the topic of Goodreads,

Nicole Brinkley

over on Misshelved has a fantastic essay about the website! She interviewed me about it in her piece. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a very nuanced piece on the good—and bad—of it all.

Let's talk about Goodreads.

Let’s see, what else…

Oh! I’ve seen the influx of love for The Seven Year Slip, and I’m so verklempt by all of it. It was a very difficult book to write and it’s very close to my heart, so I really cannot express how much I appreciate all of the love and care y’all are giving it. Thank you so, so much. I don’t shout about it often enough, but I am there, lurking in the shadows, cackling at all of your lovely instagram and tiktoks you tag me in.

And speaking of books around the internet…

---

The Dead Romantics

• “7 Books About Ghostwriters” in Electric Literature

• “125 Best Romance Books of All Time” in Parade Magazine

The Seven Year Slip

• “Turning the page on love” in the Standford Daily

• “Hate Valentine’s Day? Give books a chance” in the Berkeley Beacon

• “Heat Up your February with 5 Steamy Reads” on Victoria’s Secret blog

• “Here we go again: Your Groundhog Day Reading List” from B&N

• Bookreporter featured The Seven Year Slip in both its Indie Next pick for July and June’s LibraryReads

A Novel Love Story

• “Best Romance Books of 2024 Part 2” on Medium

• “24 Books We’re Looking Forward to Reading in 2024” over on Fangirlish

• “Swoonworthy 2024 Romance Books Releases You Need” on Nerd Daily

• Marvelous Geeks wrote about “Romance Novels We’re Looking Forward To In 2024”

---

Pre-order a signed copy of A Novel Love Story from Oblong Books!

---

I think that’s it! Don’t forget to do all the lovely things, like calling your reps about Book Bans (South Carolina residents, pay close attention to this) and for a ceasefire in Gaza.

And if you have some time to spare, here are some lovely other newsletters to browse that I’ve really enjoyed recently—

unfinished lines

Kill the Book of Your Heart

MoviePass, Substack

Courage

I will attempt to be more proactive on this newsletter, but as always I make no promises.

The only promise that I will make is that I will keep lurking.

Always lurking.