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A New Book Is Not Like Egg Salad…
Reflections on a book launch non-event
The wildfires raging in California have displaced thousands and destroyed countless homes, businesses, schools, even entire villages.
Massive flooding in Spain, the conflict in the Middle East, and other disasters both natural and manmade are causing untold misery around the world.
Racism, sexism, and poverty persist.
The future of American democracy is in very real peril.
And today, my book comes out. (And hey, it’s not just a book, it’s a tool!)
No doubt, today someone else’s book comes out too. Lots of ‘someones,’ in fact, because books are typically published on Tuesdays.
All by way of saying: Launching a book is not the biggest thing in an author’s life. It’s not the start of an author’s career, not a promise of good things to come (or bad), not a significant milestone, at all, really.
I’m not ‘mad at it.’ It’s fine. It’s good. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad the day has arrived.
But it’s not the Second Coming, either. Or the Third, whatever that was.
These days, books exist concurrently in virtual and real forms in a perpetual past, present, and future. Books may be pre-ordered before there’s a jot of ink…
