And Then Your Copies Arrive

Along with the bloodshed and tears involved in the life cycle of your book, you’re given some lovely moments: conversations with your trusted editor and agent, about the quality of your work; moments of inspiration that don’t even seem to have come from your own mind, which neatly solve dilemmas of story logic, character arc, or narrative voice; the discovery that some rich, yet long-neglected memory happens to work really well in a passage you're struggling with; the appearance of advance-sale pages on Amazon and Goodreads, and discussions with the publisher about promotional programs.... And then, a few weeks before pub date, your copies arrive, and the cover is even more splendid than that of the ARC, the printing crisper, the pages more opaque--and you feel you may be holding an object that will last longer than you do….