new book

For the first time in years, I’m not writing. Instead, I’m counting down the days until my new children’s book – The Invisibles – flies into the world.

On my desk, like a reproach, sits a quote by Elizabeth Gilbert from Big Magic, her brilliant book on creativity:

If your calling is to make things, then you will have to make things in order to live out
your highest creative potential – and also in order to remain sane. Possessing a
creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to
work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job
to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents.

Without daily writing, time echoes emptily. Dust balls roll… tumbleweeds tumble… and metaphors mix. My inner border collie has been chasing its own tail for months. Recently, it began to turn its attention to much more troublesome activities, such as overdosing on chips and looking for drama. So since there appears to be a vacancy in my head for the job of Writer, I’ve decided to pretend I’m a Publicity Person instead: one of the numerous jobs a Careers Advisor would advise me not to do, since I’m a dedicated introvert and technophobe. Of course, my publisher (Pushkin Press) will be marketing too: but they have lots of books to market and limited time.

So far, I’ve had 500 postcards printed, have signed 400 of them and added sparkly stickers to each and am now in the process of ringing as many of the 300 branches of Waterstones as I can, together with about 75 independent bookstores, offering signed postcards to any who are thinking of stocking my book.

I’m also learning stuff about social media, posting on two Facebook pages, Bluesky, Instagram and the dreaded X (or TWIX as I prefer to call it).

I’ve even commissioned this animation, made by the amazing John Duffty at Irontree Media whose generosity, creativity and commitment astound me (put the sound up, he does music and sound effects too!):

Will any of this make a difference? Well, Waterstones have been kind – several have offered to increase their orders (each branch often only orders a single copy) and a couple of stores have even offered to put my book on their tables (the publisher usually has to pay for this privilege). A book blogger saw my posts on social media and reviewed The Invisibles favourably, which made me very happy.

And all this activity helps fend off the cloud of helpless anxiety that whispers between my ears as publication day approaches. Will anyone buy my book? And if they do… what will they say about it?

The irony is that publication day is always an anti-climax. Publishing a book reminds me of that famous painting of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder: far away and very small, the body of a boy falls out of the sky and plummets into the ocean with a distant splash. Meanwhile, the world goes about its business: a fisherman casts his net, a ploughman ploughs his furrow; a shepherd (along with his medieval border collie) stares mindlessly into the distance. And another book imperceptibly joins the millions available… Wish me luck?

My website: https://susiebower.co.uk/