Is it possible to plan a "slow" book launch?

I guess I'm going to find out.

Well, it’s go time, friends. My book, The Last Parenting Book You’ll Ever Read: How We Let Our Kids Go And Embrace What’s Next, will release May 6 - less than two weeks from now - and that means that my publicity and promotion efforts are ramping up, and I’m working hard to get it in front of potential readers, fellow content creators and writers, bookstores, the media.

Another thing I’ve been working pretty hard, especially on over the last few years, is tempering my inclination toward “overproduction.” I have a tendency to want to stay in motion and have a hard time feeling satisfied with the efforts I’ve made toward something.

You could be doing more, my inner voice has a way of whispering. More is better, right?

This tendency is not all bad. It has helped power me through a lot of high-stress, high-stakes situations where effort really did pay off: launching my freelance writing career in the first place, for example; giving birth five times (and raising the five resultant children); juggling multiple jobs and businesses; powering through the chaotic years after my divorce.

But in the past few years I’ve made a very conscious decision to choose another path. To release my workaholic “boss babe” tendencies in favor of a slower path. To lean into a simpler and less complicated way of orienting my life.

To let this - this day, this hour, this moment - be enough.

And I reap the benefits of this shift in countless large and small ways. Every evening, when I decide I’ve done enough for the day and draw a hot bath instead of chasing the dopamine hit of one more email sent; every morning, when I allow myself a quiet hour of sipping a cup of tea with a book rather than jumping right into “work mode” the minute I wake up, I experience a very real quiet and peace in my body and mind and soul.

I highly recommend this approach, friends.

But while I love my slow(er), quiet(er), life, I keep finding myself wondering: will this newfound quiet energy jive with the unpredictability and deadlines of a book launch? How do I balance my desire for this book to do well and my willingness to work hard for its success with my need to keep my life calm and on track in the meantime?

Here are a few ways I’m going to try to “slow down” my book launch period:

I’m focusing on the upsides of a slower, smaller start.

When I read this refreshingly transparent post by

Amie McNee

the other day, I admit my eyebrows shot up when I read how much she got ($300K) as an advance for her forthcoming non-fiction book.

I’m thrilled for her - and obviously, I’d have been thrilled to be offered that, or half that, or one third that. But - to be equally transparent - my advance was…not even in the same ballpark. Take that number and divide it by ten, then divide that number in half, and there you have it. It’s a modest advance, not an amount that will allow me to drop everything and just “do book stuff” for the next several years.

That’s the downside. But there is an upside, too. Were this a “bigger” book, to which large expectations or a life-changing amount of money had been attached, I would probably be ramping up for a very different kind of launch period.

That would be absolutely fine - no moral judgment here, obviously, about the way anyone chooses to approach any kind of one-time, high-stakes event - but in my case, there’s simply a practical reality that I still have to continue to earn money elsewhere, which takes time and attention. The fact that I simply can’t give every moment I have to this book, in a weird way, takes some of the pressure off. Oh, I don’t actually have to.

I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself.

Without a large publicity budget, I am unlikely to get a ton of splashy coverage right at the outset of my launch. Instead I’m pacing myself for a slow build with multiple opportunities to talk about the book over the next several years, and I don’t want to burn out before I’ve even gotten off the ground.

So months ago, when I started feeling all kinds of anxious energy starting to swirl around what my promotion time might look like and what I would need to do to help this book get its best possible start, I reminded myself many times: “I don’t need to worry about that yet.”

And now that release day is just around the corner, I’m reminding myself that I still have time.

May 6 will be a big day, and of course I’m hopeful that the book will sell well in its initial first few weeks. But this is not the only window of time I will have to promote this book, and that I can only expend energy worrying about the opportunities that are right in front of me - not the ones that may or may not appear three or six or nine months down the road.

I’m basing “success” on what’s within my control.

What I can control: how many media outlets, content creators, etc. I reach out to tell about my book.

What I can’t control: how many of those outlets or people actually give it coverage.

So instead of aiming for a specific number of placements, weeks ago I wrote down a list of outreach efforts, then broke it up into weekly chunks. Once I hit my weekly outreach goal, I take the rest of the week off, then start up again. If a natural opportunity to talk about the book comes up in the “off” period I’ll jump on it if I have the time and energy, but if I can’t, I write it down and wait for the next “batch” - without guilt.

The truth is that there will always be more I could do for this book, but it’s simply not possible for me to predict which efforts will lead to the best results. So I am trying to focus on what I can control - my effort - instead of what I can’t - the outcomes - as an indicator that I’m on the right track…and let my “more is always better” tendencies take a rest.

I mean, I can’t match my manicure to my book cover EVERY SINGLE DAY…

I’m spreading myself thick.

Between Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, and of course, Substack, I could easily find myself flailing around the Internet, throwing half-baked posts at every platform and hoping they magically get traction.

But frankly, that sounds pretty miserable, not to mention unlikely to get results.

So while I’ll post on Facebook and Instagram a couple of times in the lead-up to the launch and may eventually get around to adding my book to my LinkedIN profile, I’m doing the majority of my launch promotion in just two places: podcasts and - guess what? - here on Substack!

Both platforms give me more of an opportunity to do what I love: engage in deeper conversation about the topics and themes covered in my book.

In fact, I’ll be hanging out here on Substack all day on May 6, book launch day, visiting “stops” on my Substack Book Tour, during which I’ll be giving live interviews on around a dozen Substacks. Stay tuned for the full schedule and links to each host, which I’ll share on May 5.

Once the immediate launch period has passed, I’ll probably spread out my efforts a bit more again, but right now I really need to limit the number of possible platforms I spend time on so that I don’t spread myself too thin - and dilute my efforts as a result. I’d rather spread myself thick - be in fewer places, but make more of an impact in each.

I’m still dreaming up new ideas.

Since I began my freelance writing career over two decades ago, I’ve made a point of developing multiple ideas at any given time. That way I don’t get too obsessive about the pitch that keeps getting rejected or the response to a piece that’s already out in the world.

Right now I’m chipping away at two book ideas that are both completely unrelated to The Last Parenting Book You’ll Ever Read (whether or not it’s actually the last parenting book you ever read, it is definitely the last parenting book I ever intend to write), and trying to decide which one I feel more moved to fully develop and put out in the world soon.

My goal is to have a new proposal in the works around the time the initial push for The Last Parenting Book You’ll Ever Read is starting to slow down. That way I’ll have something else to focus my energy on instead of stressing about sales numbers.

I’m still living my life.

After this book took over so much of my life for the 6-ish months I was writing it, I promised myself that I wouldn’t allow it to take over my life in the promotion period!

So, I’m still making sure to hang on to the rhythms and routines that help me feel grounded and connected. I’ll getting my garden in over the next couple of weeks and continuing to make healthy food and get lots of outdoor walking time in, even though there are book-related things I “could” be doing instead. I’m working in my tea shop a few days a week, and taking care to be present for my customers rather than ruminating on media pitches. I’m continuing to get together with friends, hang out with my kids, and spend downtime with my husband, and trying to keep boundaries around that time so book promotion doesn’t inch its way into every single other part of my life.

I’m keeping it all in perspective.

I’ve been around long enough to know that one book release very, very rarely changes someone’s life or career in a moment. And the older I get, the more I realize that’s not really what I’m after, anyway. I write because I love to write, and I’d do it even if nobody ever published my work, so the fact that I have a real, live book to hold in my hands is an incredible cherry on top of an already pretty sweet gig.

Whether or not this book “sells well” has no bearing on how I experience abundance in my life - and that’s a lesson worth remembering as I step into the hopefully not-too-crazy craziness of the next few weeks.

I spent many months of hard work dreaming up this book, pitching this book, writing this book, editing this book. And now, in some small way, I need to release my grip and let it do its thing out in the wider world. At some point I’ve done everything I can - and need to let the book, and its readers, find each other and take it the rest of the way for me.

If you’d like to see some specific ways you can help me spread the word about The Last Parenting Book You’ll Ever Read, please check out this post. And if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe so you get the full schedule of Substack Book Tour stops on May 5!

Thanks for being here, friend.

-Meagan

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