First-time novelists with books out or coming soon talk about their changes of plans and how they’re spending these unusual days. For many first-time novelists, years of hard work (and often solitary time) culminate in seeing their book come into the world: going to festivals and bookstores to read sections aloud and connecting with readers face to face, inhabiting with others the worlds they built. But with social distancing guidelines discouraging gatherings of more than 10 people, publishing a debut has changed in ways that authors couldn’t have foreseen just a few weeks ago. We spoke to several debut novelists about their books, their plans to promote their work and their days during this unusual time.
Describe your book in a sentence. My book is a dark comedy about a young man, Claude McKay Love, coming of age on Chicago’s South Side, trying to navigate universal teenager angst while dealing with societal pressures. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? I spent most of February touring and giving interviews.
I was supposed to go on my final leg this upcoming week. By last Wednesday, as the severity of this situation clarified, after a few events canceled, we decided to cancel everything. It seemed silly to put people at risk of contracting and spreading the disease for a reading. How are you spending it now?
Now, my class at University at Buffalo has moved online. I also teach writing classes at Just Buffalo Literary Center. They’ve wisely closed. Until further notice, I’m hunkered down with my girlfriend, our dog and cat, video games, movies, writing projects and books.
I’m editing my second novel. It’s about an underground society that forms because America and the world are crumbling. Coming back to that work during these times is, well, surreal. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this?
Publishing and promoting a book is a stressful, maddening, exhausting, anxiety-inducing and wonderful process. This book has taken up almost all my head space the past few months. It was the most important thing to me. This crisis has brought me back to reality.
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I’m no longer afraid of bad reviews, empty readings or a lukewarm reception. I’m afraid for the world. I also feel a deeper appreciation for literature’s ability to transport us away from the present. Describe your book in a sentence.
“The Cactus League” is a community novel that charts the path of Jason Goodyear, the Los Angeles Lions’ fantastic but flawed left fielder, as the Lions make their way through spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? My publicist and I worked together to build out an ambitious schedule of events at independent bookstores, schools and festivals, with the understanding that those readings and conversations really do sell books. I was fortunate to complete the first half of my tour in February — though I was in several Covid-19 hot spots, including Seattle, just days before the outbreak was detected there, and those happy, carefree — and crowded — gatherings now seem a bit ominous.
I had a second leg charted — visiting spring training and the Tucson Book Festival, then speaking to several university writing programs, including my graduate alma mater, Louisiana State University. I was supposed to be watching a Brewers spring training game right now! How are you spending it now? I’m trying to book podcast and radio interviews as much as I can, and I’m being pretty emphatic on social media about supporting not just my novel but all debut writers and independent bookstores (book events are a major driver of sales for them, too).
I’m also spending a lot of time on triage at work — by day I run The Paris Review. Making sure my colleagues were safe and healthy and ready to go remote, and postponing our 400-person awards dinner and fund-raiser, also have kept me plenty busy. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? I’d love to plug the new website bookshop.
org. You can order online, but the sales are fulfilled by indies, based on your geography. It just launched — in the nick of time. Describe your book in a sentence.
My debut novel, “Temporary,” is the story of a temporary worker who is assigned a series of surreal and improbable jobs on her quest for permanence — she works as a pirate, an assassin, a ghost and even a bank robber. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? I am a former theater kid, and a well-known ham, so more than anything I was looking forward to putting on a show. I think that when readers trek out to a book event, it’s such a great way of saying “thank you” to do something a little bit different than a straightforward reading.
For the Brooklyn launch, I had planned a performance of several sections of my novel, with a Greek chorus of readers, including the author Diane Cook, and the writer and podcast host Dennis Norris II. Coffee House Press, Emily Books and I had put together a tour of about 17 events in 12 different cities around the country. I was devastated to see these events disappear. It took so much time and care to put a tour together.
I have been saving airline miles and taking on extra work for years to make it possible. My family has been planning to come to New York for months, and after they canceled their flights (the right decision), I spent a good hour crying and watching “Love Is Blind. ” Writing a book can be incredibly lonely, and I was so looking forward to the chance to share it with the people I love and admire, in person. How are you spending it now?
Books Are Magic was set to host my book launch on Friday, March 13 (I know, I know). In the face of everything happening in the world, and after obsessively refreshing Twitter, it became clear that the events around my book were kaput. And then! The writer and bookstore owner Emma Straub had me and my editor, Emily Gould, stop by the store yesterday to film a short Q.
and A. for Instagram. They even let me sing a couple of songs on my ukulele. And yesterday evening, my husband, along with the debut author Emma Copley Eisenberg, hosted a surprise digital book launch over Zoom.
There were so many friends from near and far, and my mom was even able to join the video! People were on the chat with their babies, their toddlers, their dogs. Whole families were able to attend! There were old friends from high school and college, and friends from Twitter and the writing world who I have still never met in real life.
It was incredibly moving. I had had a glass of wine, and so the evening ended with some vocal stylings, impressions of Idina Menzel and Audra McDonald, and a group rendition of “So Long, Farewell” from “The Sound of Music. ” That’s something that never would have happened at a live event. It had a different, cozy energy, kind of like a literary sleepover.
Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? I have been so stunned by everyone in this community’s willingness to support and care for one another. I feel truly buoyed and connected, despite our current mandated isolation. I am hopeful, and ready to hunker down and read books through the coming months, and am here to support the other authors with debuts on the way.
Describe your book in a sentence. “Under the Rainbow” is about what happens when a queer task force is sent into the most homophobic town in America. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? I had a launch event on March 10 that was quite sparsely attended, and I was supposed to be a panelist at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April, which was just moved to the fall.
I have another April event called Literary Orange that I suspect will be canceled, and even if it isn’t, I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable attending. How are you spending it now? At home, anxious in old pajamas, which is basically my default setting! I’m spending a lot of time on Twitter and Instagram, trying to interact with people who are willing to amplify books coming out right now.
Is there anything else you want to add or has been on your mind in connection with this? I think certain themes from my novel could really resonate with people right now: being trapped in a place you don’t want to be (the most homophobic town in America, your tiny apartment), disruption of the status quo. Individual people are doing a lot to help — next week I’m going on the Debutiful podcast for what the host is calling a Virtual Book Tour episode that will work just like a tour event, with a short reading followed by questions about the book. Describe your book in a sentence.
It’s a coming-of-age novel through bilingual, explosive language. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? Definitely been a hard hit, especially this being my first novel — I wanted to go all out. I was going to the A.
W. P. conference in San Antonio to be part of two panels there. For the book release, I was going to do a church drag show.
And then I thought, I didn’t want my book to have the pandemic looming over it. We could have gone through with it, but I didn’t want that looming over it. I wanted it to be something celebratory. I was going to fly to L.
A. next week and do two events there, and then the San Antonio Book Festival. I still have my ticket to go to New York mid-April, but am going to reassess. How are you spending it now?
Yesterday, when I announced that I wasn’t going to do the event here and was canceling the rest of the California tour, some people started reaching out to me. Friends with different skills asking if I wanted do a live reading, to video myself and post it on different sites. What’s been happening today is reimagining what it will look like, mainly through the internet. It’s not ideal, because I like seeing and hearing people, touching people, doing something live.
The feeling is different. But it’s about the circumstances and accepting what you can’t control. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this?
“A lot of the queer community is talking about elders and H.”
I. V. , how to really tap into resources for folks that actually need them. And having conversations about how the queer community went through something like this, and we have avenues of how to deal with this.
People are asking for people’s Venmos, donating $50 or $100 to folks — some underground economy starting. Describe your book in a sentence. “New Waves” is a novel about how work culture bleeds into how we approach all the things in our personal life — grief, racism, the internet, etc. It’s funnier than how I just made it sound, though.
How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? I had a launch event at Books Are Magic, which had a really great turnout. At drinks afterward, a running theme was: “This is the last time I’m going out for a while. ” So I’m lucky that for pub day, I had a crowd of friends, family and strangers that felt celebratory.
The rest of my tour will likely be postponed. It’s disappointing, but there are larger things at stake than my in-your-feelings literary novel. How are you spending it now? Mostly texting and DMing with other writers who had books coming out around now.
There are some people who are really crushed. I’m also on a handful of email threads with other authors — most of whom I’ve never met, just people who are in the same boat. A sinking tide bums out all boats, I guess. I’m trying to figure out some more creative ways to keep up the energy around my book and others that dropped in the past few weeks.
Everyone keeps suggesting doing livestreams in lieu of the events that have been canceled. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea, but I’m not entirely confident that these are ways people want to experience readings. There might be an upside, though: I think it may push authors and editors to think of creative, ambitious ways to do digital projects. That, and rewatching “Scrubs.
” Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? A lot of the authors, publicists and editors I’ve talked to feel defeated by the circumstances. I get it. I’m definitely discouraged a bit, too.
But there’s an opportunity here, if we can all figure it out. The reality is that book events, while still effective in some ways, are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Which makes sense. Reading is a private, intimate act.
Book tours have been a way to try and make these things social. (How many events do you go to that feel like they drag on for too long? ) They’re also expensive, and unless you’re one of a handful of already well-established authors, publishers are seeing them as an expense with very little return. I’m hoping these hurdles encourage us to think about how book promotion can be reinvented.
Describe your book in a sentence. “The Mountains Sing” is a journey into Vietnam’s 20th-century history via the lives of four generations of the Tran family. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? My publisher and I, as well as independent bookstores, several universities and cultural organizations worked for months together to develop a very exciting book tour which would take me to meet readers in many cities.
I have my tickets to fly all the way from Indonesia, where I am currently based, to the United States. I planned to present my book in unique Vietnamese ways, including singing and performances. I had my ao dai dresses tailor-made for the events. I was very looking forward to conversations with writers whom I most admire, including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Thi Bui, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Wayne Karlin, Madeleine Thien, Karl Marlantes and Ethelbert Miller, and I am devastated the book tour has been canceled.
How are you spending it now? I am searching for online ways to interact with readers, via social media and press interviews. According to the Vietnamese saying, “trong cai rui co cai may — good luck hides inside bad luck,” this difficult time reveals the amazing and supportive spirit of the literary community. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this?
I fought my whole life to be able to become a writer, and now I need to fight against the coronavirus situation for my debut novel in English to reach readers’ hands. My heart goes out to everyone who has been affected by this calamity. Amid all this, there is a need to keep the book business afloat by lending a hand to indie booksellers, publishers, authors. Books help keep us calm and are essential during this time of social distancing.
For those reasons, I will be buying as many books released this month and next month as I can. Describe your book in a sentence. “Lakewood” is about a young black woman who joins a government-sponsored research study in an attempt to pay off her family’s debts. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book?
I was scheduled to go to several independent bookstores, read at some university-sponsored events, talk at a high school, go to Booktopia (a small literary festival in Vermont this year) and give craft talks for organizations like Literary Cleveland. How are you spending it now? I’m working with some other writers to possibly do some digital readings via Instagram Live. I’ll still be on some podcasts and guest-editing some Instagram feeds.
I’m going to Skype into some book clubs. We’re trying to reschedule book tour stuff for late April, early May, but that feels optimistic. I’m worried about the independent bookstores that are impacted by this. A lot of them have been incredible advocates for me and “Lakewood.
” I’ll probably spend way more of this time encouraging friends and family to buy my book, any book, from them via online sales. Before, I would’ve been telling people to come out and get into the stores. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? One thing that has changed during book promotion for me is that at the beginning of it, the majority of people wanted to talk to me about race and the implications of it in “Lakewood.
” A lot of comparisons to “Get Out” were made. Now, because so much of the book’s plot speaks toward economic inequities, toward the deep inequity in the U. S. health care system, we’re now talking about how uncomfortably relatable the book has become to many more people due to Covid-19.
The only positive I can take at the moment from this pandemic is that maybe it will help the unconvinced understand how cruel it is not to have easily accessible and affordable health care. Describe your book in a sentence. It’s about an Iranian bus driver in Tehran who reluctantly gets involved in politics and pays a heavy price, getting thrown into jail because he attended a strike organized by a union and spending a lot of time in solitary confinement. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book?
We had a few events lined up. The book launch was March 24, scheduled to be at the Center for Fiction, and I was excited to be in conversation with Shirin Neshat, the Iranian visual artist and filmmaker. Then I was heading to Australia in late April for the Sydney Writers’ Festival (which is canceled, too), and then another festival in New Jersey. It was about half a dozen events, all of them canceled.
Some postponed — well, hopefully all postponed. Then there is the baby my wife just had yesterday, who was overdue, a week after due date. I was looking forward to the birth of these two things, one human, one book. One born all right, the other one … facing a lot issues.
How are you spending it now? I’ll still be doing an NPR interview. To be honest with you, I’m so preoccupied with the baby that I don’t care very much at the moment. It’s kind of a blessing in disguise.
I was concerned that I would be away from my family, and it’s nice to be with them. I also teach at CUNY in Harlem. Those classes are also canceled. It’s weird to think — it feels like everything was put on hold as soon as he was born.
Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? I don’t really know. It’s a very weird coincidence. To have your life, all of these events of intensity meeting at one point within the span of a couple days.
It’s very complicated. I haven’t really thought through it that much yet. If you have any kind of belief in the fact that no coincidence is entirely coincidental, then this is good material for obsessive thinking. Describe your book in a sentence.
“Catherine House” is a gothic literary suspense novel set at a mysterious cultlike college with a dangerous secret agenda. How were you planning to spend your time promoting and talking about your book? We were planning to do podcasts and interviews, book giveaways, social media pushes, bookseller dinners, media events and, of course, launch events at bookstores when it comes out. How are you spending it now?
Luckily, since the book isn’t out for a couple of months, we’ve only had to cancel one thing. So much of connecting to readers and finding an audience happens at a distance these days — the podcasts and interviews happen over the phone, so those are going ahead as scheduled, and the giveaways are happening, and for better or for worse, social media is more active than ever. Is there anything else you want to add or that’s been on your mind in connection with this? I feel lucky that my book doesn’t come out for a couple of months, so I’m not too worried there.
I’m more concerned about how to care for my vulnerable family and loved ones, and for beloved small businesses (like bookstores) and nonprofits. But like so many people, I’ve suddenly found myself trapped at home, anxious and bored with a lot of time on my hands — and that’s the perfect time to disappear into a book.
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