Good News Travels ... Slowly Sometimes

You know how when you have some big news, so you tell people in a few ways/places, and then you feel like if you mention it more, it'll just be obnoxious, and surely word has spread by now to everyone who should know?

You know how that doesn't always work?

Yeah.

As most of you know, I had pretty big writing-life news a couple of times this year. I posted here and on Facebook, I tweeted, and AgentQuery Connect spontaneously combusted both times. I also told my immediate family (obviously) and the parts of my extended family that I see on a regular basis.

I got to that point where I thought word had spread. Naturally, though, there were gaps.

Some were inevitable, like fellow writers who have too many friends on Facebook to keep up with everything. Occasionally, someone will drop me a line and ask how things are going, so I have to pull out the, "Well, I don't know if you heard about this, but ... uh, yeah."

With others, I just didn't do a very good job. Family in particular. I don't see my mom's side as often as my dad's, but I figured my mom would tell her sister, and word would get around.

Well, that didn't work, judging by my aunt's announcement and everyone's surprise at Christmas Eve dinner. I guess my aunt didn't find out until much more recently, so the cousins and their kids didn't know until we all got together.

I think there's a lesson buried in here about self-promotion.

We've all seen self-promotion gone wrong. The authors who spam your Twitter feed, who are a constant stream of "Buy my book!" We don't want to do that.

At the same time, we need to make sure word gets out, so people who want to know will. It's a balance, like everything else.

With that in mind ...

Yes, my debut novel is coming out with Disney-Hyperion in Summer 2014. It's even listed on Goodreads now. Feel free to add it to your To-Read shelf if you have an account there.

It's also on some lists. If you feel like voting for it, awesome. If you don't, no worries.

But at least I let you know.