I’ve got a book coming out today. Did you know about this? Possibly not; I made very little fanfare about it.
I just took a webinar on Book Marketing, too. It was a good webinar; I learned some valuable material. But one of the things the presenter said was that book marketing should start way, way before the release date—like months before. And I thought to myself, well, I missed that boat with The Garden of Good Things.
But then—that was pretty much intentional. The fact of the matter is that I didn’t want to make a big deal of this book release. I have done so in the past; Seventh Son, on its first release, got all the fanfare I could throw at it. I even baked it a cake, and I splashed the book around on all the social media I was on at the time, brought print copies to real life events, etc etc.
You see, Seventh Son was a much, much bigger deal for me. It was the first book I ever wrote, the first book I learned self-publishing on, the first time I had made a real novel.
With Garden of Good Things, I just wrote it for fun one NaNoWriMo; and then after leaving it to languish in a drawer for about ten years I polished it up (with the help of my friend-and-editor Louise Bates, of course), packaged it into a novel, and put it online. And now you can read it and have fun with it, too. Not that big a deal.
It reminds me of the time an older, very accomplished friend of mine proudly announced on Facebook that he had just made a meatloaf, for the first time ever.
Full disclosure, I did have a small inward chuckle at his announcement. His first meatloaf, ever? I’ve been making meatloaf* for decades. Ditto for loaves of bread, jars of jam or canned peaches, cakes of any description, pots of stew, knitted socks, and so on. Announcing them on Facebook would get rather monotonous – they’re just not a big deal to me anymore.
There are other things that are a big deal to me at the moment—they make me so nervous they keep me up at night for weeks beforehand, even though they probably make you chuckle quietly to yourself and say “What’s the big deal?” Selling my ceramics at markets and in shops is one of them for me right now—eeep, yikes, look what I did!
But as for meatloaves and jams and socks, no big deal.
The thing is that they’re just ordinary, everyday, commonplace meatloaves and jams and socks. We eat them or wear them, and sometimes they’re a little burnt or there’s a missed stitch—last year’s apricot jam has bits of an apricot pit in it that accidentally got beaten up with the pulp. Less than perfect, but perfectly alright for everyday.
That’s all I want for my meatloaves and jams and socks. I don’t intend to sell them, and I don’t want to win prizes with them; they don’t need fanfare, they just need to fulfil their purpose.
In the case of hand-knitted socks, that’s especially pertinent. Because for me, the point of making socks is to make them. I enjoy knitting; having something to wear at the end is a beneficial byproduct.
That’s kind of what happened with The Garden of Good Things, too. I wrote it for the fun of writing it, and then I had a book, so I thought I might as well publish it. But I don’t want to make a big deal of it, because it’s not a big-deal kind of book.
But that’s just me and this particular book (and a few others like it that I have on the back burner). I don’t mean to say that writing a book is not a big deal (good grief, no!). But not every book needs to have a big fanfare blown for it. There’s room for the everyday kind of books, too, just for fun.
My friend’s meatloaf was a big deal because it was his first one. Other people’s meatloaves might be a big deal because they’re gourmet, the pinnacle of meatloafness; or because selling meatloaves is this person’s business. My meatloaves, tasty though they are, are kind of ordinary and, as such, no big deal.
Some books of mine are a big deal for one reason or another, and hopefully there’ll be more of those in the future. Other people’s books are a big deal, for them and for their readers, not least because they might aim to make money on them. And those big-deal books, like some meatloaves, deserve all the fanfares and advertising campaigns. But you don’t have to blow the fanfare for every one of them.
So as for The Garden of Good Things, it’s getting a soft launch. This is me, just quietly saying “I made a book, wanna read it?” You might enjoy it, and just like handknitted socks warm your toes and meatloaves warm your belly, I hope it warms your soul.
And that’s Life, the Universe, a Soft Launch and Meatloaves. Go here or contact me for the The Garden of Good Things, and keep reading for the meatloaf recipe.
PS: So you can make your very own meatloaf to eat while you read the book, here’s my recipe:
*GERMAN MEATLOAF by Angelika
1-2 lbs/500-800g of ground beef (or pork or chicken)
1 stale (day-old) Kaiser bun, or the equivalent amount of sliced bread (I save the heel of loaves and let them dry out in the back of the breadbox especially for this purpose)
1 egg
1 small onion
1 tsp salt (or less, according to taste)
1/4 tsp pepper or a few grinds of the pepper mill
1 tsp dried parsley, or 2 Tbsp chopped fresh
1/2 tsp dried oregano (or chopped fresh)
1/4 tsp ground paprika
-finely mince the onion. Sauté it in a bit of oil until translucent.
-soak the dry bread in water, then squeeze it out like a wet dishcloth.
-put all ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl.
-squish everything together with your hands until well combined. If that’s too icky for you, mix it with a spoon or potato masher, but hands work best.
-put it in a 5×9” loaf pan, or form into a round loaf shape and put in a larger pan or cookie sheet with high rim. Poke 3-4 holes in the middle (optional, makes it cook more evenly).
–bake at 350° for 1 hr.
-let stand for five minutes or so, then slice and serve! We like it with gravy, rice or mashed potatoes, and a salad.
Note: If there’s any left over, it’s really good cold, sliced thinly on sandwiches. Also, this mixture makes great hamburgers or meatballs (fry in a pan, or bake or broil for 20 minutes).
Guten Appetit!
