What it's like to publish a book

I published a new Charles Lenox book yesterday. It's called "An Old Betrayal," and for another fifteen hours you can win a signed copy through Goodreads! (Link at the bottom of this post.)

This is my seventh book, and I will say that each time there are a few highlights:

- Opening the box with the finished book inside, and really seeing for the first time what it will look like

- Watching the first few reviews float in (and hoping they're good)

- Seeing it in the wild - in a bookstore (that never stops being exciting), or better still someone reading it on a park bench or a subway platform

- Going out to read to people and interact with the readers who enjoy your work...

Writing a book makes you vulnerable! You can get bad reviews, you can have an event where nobody shows up, you can find something you messed up on page 131 and spend a week hoping that nobody else sees it.

But it's really also thrilling. Writing is a solitary venture a lot of the time - mornings at the desk - and publication is a chance to be a little more outward-facing, to meet people, to get drinks and enjoy the company of other readers and writers. For two weeks of the year anyway, it's what I love. Any longer than that and I think I'd be itching for a little quiet.

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Here's the Goodreads giveaway! https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...