I woke up this morning to a friend’s book launch, several book birthdays, and to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s post on book birthdays and why writers shouldn’t do book launches. It was a bit of cognitive dissonance.

First, I’m thrilled for my friend. Writing a book is no small thing and publishing is another ball of slippery soap. Second, he seems to be doing everything right. His cover is gorgeous. It adds to the substantial catalog of his other books.

Whenever I see my friends do their book launches I naturally project my unborn books into the future and wonder what I should do. I am fascinated by a stealth program of just putting the books out there and waiting until I have eight or ten before doing any marketing. This is the program that Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch recommend. It is part of the idea that you don’t promote your magic bakery until you have filled it with goodies.

Part of me wants to tell everyone, send up balloons and have a Champagne party when I launch my first book. Well, I’ll have the Champagne in any case. I think Steve is saving me a special bottle for my debut novel.

The other part of me likes a stealth launch because it allows me to work out any bugs in the system with a relatively small audience. It’s the IT project manager in me. We always tried to do a small launch in a single city before we extended the project to the entire country and then the world. So that will probably be my plan. Stealth publishing until I think I have the system figured out.

Of course none of this matters if I don’t finish books. So that’s the focus this year: finishing and getting things published.

I hope you are launching yourself into the world this 2020. Or stealthing it. Whatever you prefer.

Be well, friends.