One month until my new book publishes!

Thoughts about gearing up for book promotion season, and how you can help.

Hello, friends!

It’s been a while since I’ve written a proper post.

I was in a cabin just outside the Smokies in Tennessee all last week on Spring Break with Eric and Clara and my brother’s family. Before I left, I’d made myself a list of book-related tasks - things that wouldn’t take too much brain power and that I could do in small chunks - figuring I’d spend a little time every day working on promotion.

Instead, my laptop’s charging port stopped working, and I spent the last half-hour of its battery life frantically downloading crucial files and editing my latest episode of The Kettle, and then when I unpacked at the cabin, I realized I’d left my book launch to-do list behind.

It all seemed like a sign, so I instead remained mostly offline for the duration of the trip. All the better frame of mind from which to enjoy moments like this:

Now that I’m more or less settled back in at home, I’m grateful I took a more complete break from work when I could. Book release seasons can be pretty intense, and the last time I launched a book, I was not only fourteen years younger than I am today, but book promotion itself was completely different.

In 2011, when I last published a book, social media was nothing like it is now. I was active on Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram to a lesser degree - but while I used those platforms to share big book news, it was usually more about amplifying things that were happening elsewhere. In other words, there wasn’t an expectation that I would use those platforms as mini-media outlets of their own. Podcasts were still nascent, and not yet relevant in the motherhood space, so I didn’t really think about pitching those either.

Instead, the goal was to land coverage via established media platforms - television, radio, magazines and newspapers. I did a lot of pitching, hoping that just a handful of outlets might say “yes” and offer coverage. All it would take, it seemed, was landing the right magazine mention or morning-show feature for a book to “make it.” (Looking back now, I’m not sure that was true even then, but it definitely seems truER then than it could be now, in the age of divided attention and niche lifestyle content.)

When I consider how much book promotion has changed in the last fourteen years, it’s honestly kind of mind-boggling. Those friends who I once hoped would review my book on their blogs (a low-effort proposition for the author) or retweet my launch-day news now have large social media platforms on which they do interviews and live streams, and, of course, many also have podcasts with good-sized followings.

I hope a good number will be willing to give my book some attention, but as a fellow podcaster I know just how many pitches they get, how time-intensive producing a podcast is, and how organized and specific a podcaster must be with their coverage in order to keep on a publishing schedule - so I make no assumptions.

And showing up for lots of in-person appearances is also incredibly time-consuming for the author giving the interview! I’m realizing that I need to be cognizant of my own ability to cram a potentially endless amount of book promotion into an already very busy season - a season that I want to experience fully, enjoy deeply, and in which I want to plant new seeds, both figurative and literal.

When I have a big event coming up, I have a bad habit of feeling like I must do all the things immediately, whipping myself up into a frenzy of anticipated activity far before there’s anything to actually do, spinning my wheels harder and earlier than is helpful, and then burning out on a project before it’s had a chance to get off the ground.

That was true even in 2011, and to keep from completely melting down in the much more fractured marketplace of 2025 when there seem to be millions of opportunities to chase, I need to put some kind of container around my efforts and expectations. That balance will no doubt be tough to manage, but I’m making a promise to myself to try.

I’ll write more about what I envision a “slow” book launch season could look like (and how it actually goes) over the next month or two, but in the meantime, I wanted to share more about my book and let you know how you can help me spread the word!

A Very Excited Selfie!

The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever Read: How We Let Our Kids Go And Embrace What's Next will be available everywhere on May 6.

The book is a love letter to my 27 years of motherhood, a note of support for other moms and dads approaching the end of the "active" stage of child-rearing, a cheering section for parents of older kids and young adults who aren't sure about the job they did (and are still doing), and gentle encouragement to look for opportunities to turn some of the nurturing energy you've been directing toward your kids back toward yourself.

If you'd like to help me with my book launch effort, here are a few ways you can do that:

1) Pre-orders are incredibly helpful for authors! You can find the book and preorder links at https://bit.ly/thelastparentingbook. Asking your local library to reserve a copy is also a huge help.

2) Help spread the word via your digital networks and with your in-real-life parent connections, and if you happen to know any members of the media who might be interested in interviewing me or doing a story about The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever Read, please direct them to my book page: https://bit.ly/thelastparentingbook. My publisher is happy to send copies of the book to established media folk/content creators, and I can send a PDF galley as well.

3) If you have a podcast, blog, or newsletter, or if you freelance for publications that might be interested in a story about raising older kids, the transition to empty nesting, and leaning back into one's own life after the intensive phase of parenting has passed, I'd love to hear from you! DM me on Substack, or respond to this email. And if you are active on Substack, restacking this post and other book-related posts is really helpful.

4) If you have connections at any of parent's or women's organizations that might be interested in having me speak at an event, I'm all ears!

5) If you live nearby one of my planned events, I would love to see you there. As I get closer to launch date I'll start sharing more about those opportunities here via my Substack newsletter, so stay tuned.

Finally, simple words of encouragement and congratulations mean so much more than you might realize, whether they come via email, comment, Substack, or social.

Thanks for being here, friends, and for supporting my work.

Meagan