Thoughts on the Eve of Release Day!

So technically I should have written this last night but the uploading process to Amazon took less time than expected so hey, here it is! Besides, Yeezus leaked early so I had to keep up with the competition.

In case you couldn’t tell from my constant tweeting, “The Art of Love” is officially a real thing out in the wild on Amazon and Smashwords (I’m working on uploading it to Nook, Kobo and a few other places right now so please be patient). It’s so weird to know that I actually wrote a book that people can buy, read and talk about! A few months ago, if you had told me I would be self-publishing a 75000 word new adult novel I would have had a few questions for you.

One, what the hell is a new adult novel?

Two, I have never written 75000 words in my whole life.

Three, who are you and why do you know so much about my future?

I knew self-publishing would be hard work. All good things are. It takes a village of kind, generous and extremely patient people to put up with me on the best of days, so having the amazing group of bloggers, tweeters and Goodreads users who offered support, advice and a helping blog tour hand have my infinite gratitude. I literally couldn’t have done it without them.

Special thanks must go to my darling Megan, a truly amazing friend. She basically kept me sane and moving forwards throughout this entire process. Most of the good ideas for promo were her ideas. Okay, pretty much all of them were her idea! I owe you a big one, Megan, and I know you won’t let me forget it! I promise you so many cakes!

Thank you to every reviewer who tolerated terribly formatted ARCs (I have no idea what happened there, honestly. Epub ate up all the dashes. I promise that’s fixed in the final book and I even removed the dreaded line about Marina letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in!). Whether you loved the book or wanted it to melt under the fire of your hatred, I’m so happy you took the time to read it. I’ve had 5, 4, 3 and 2 star reviews (not had 1 star yet – part of me is relieved, the other part wants to complete the set!) and I love them all. I promise to never bug or interfere with reviewers for as long as I’m writing.

Thanks to all my inspirations, from Marina Abramovic to Tammara Webber to Gail Simone to RuPaul! I can’t even list all of the people and things that have inspired me from birth. They’re all present in this book somewhere and they’ve shaped me as a person. That’s good, I swear, although I know some who would disagree!

Thanks to everyone who has bought the book already and did so legally. I found out that someone bought the book, put it up on Mobilism, and then got a refund on their purchase. So far, 300 or so people have illegally downloaded my book. Quick work, right? It’s nice to know that you want to read my work, just not enough to pay $3 for it. I honestly thought that was quite reasonable. I’ve sent DMCA notifications to the sites in question to take down my book. To the 300 people who have already illegally downloaded it, I’m sorry that my book and your opinion of authors is worth so little to you.

And to you, the reader who loves the written word, who takes risks on weird little indie authors and books with covers that may or may not show a dead guy’s feet on a bed (a lot of people like the cover for that reason. Note to self: write book with some death in it), and who get so excited by a great new read that they must tell the world. Thank you. Even if you don’t read “The Art of Love”, thank you for just doing what you do.