My First Book

My first book, You Might Forget the Sky was Ever Blue, officially drops today from Duck Lake Books. This project has been a long time coming, full of false-starts, re-dos, crises of faith, and at last, today, fruition.

Particularly for those of you follow this blog but don’t do much social media, and to gather some material in one place, today’s post compiles some odds and ends related to the book release.

You can order the book online directly from the publisher, via Amazon, and through Barnes & Noble.

The book got its first review in Kirkus Reviews and its second from Lori Duff. I was pleased to do interviews about the book with Chuck Augello from Cease, Cows, Elizabeth Gaucher from Longridge Review, and with Elaina Curci from The Lamron, each largely focused on the book, and to similarly get a blog post up with the good folks at Orson’s Review.

In the month leading up to release, i recruited eight super-talented writer friends from across the country to join me in recording a “Virtual Release Party” video, shared below.

If you’ve read this far, you may be wondering what you can do to support me and the book. Perhaps it’s too obvious to bother mentioning, but I would love for you to buy yourself a copy and read it. Beyond that, here are some other ideas:

-Share the book on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are the new word of mouth—it’s an effective, no-cost way of getting the book’s name and links out there. (If you’re reading this post close to the release, you may notice I’m also running a promotion in Twitter, complete with a give-away or two.)

-Request a copy at your local library. Doing so will sell a copy (and enable you to read the book without having to buy if you’re strapped for cash). Besides that, it can help the book reach more readers in your local community.

-Review the book. Reviews can drive a book’s visibility at online vendors like Amazon (e.g., not only more sales, but more reviews even if you didn’t buy the book there, or haven’t read it yet can make the book show up more often in Amazon’s suggested items and as a higher search result). Reviews are also great for getting the word out there in personal blogs or, if you’re feeling really ambitious, in literary journals.