This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.
by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
I spent yesterday at Kai’s apartment. I’m lucky to call Kai my neighbor, collaborator, filmmaker extraordinaire, best friend, and, oh yeah, sister [sometimes I call her my sisbor = sis(ter) + (neigh)bor]! This summer we shot a lot of fun footage up at the lake house, to be made into 8 or 9 thirty-second book trailers that can be released in the weeks leading up to Bittersweet’s May publication. I came over to say dumb things like, “um, can it be more…slow at that part?” and she did everything else brilliant and complicated involving Final Cut Pro and a computer.
Yes, that is a crossbow over her shoulder. No, a crossbow will not be appearing in any of my book trailers.
Most of the day, this was my view. Feeling filled with gratitude and pleasure, peppered by long periods of time in which she clicked buttons and the mouse and “rendered” and edited, and, awestruck, I kept thinking, “My little sister knows about to DO things.”
There was a tornado watch, so naturally, for a break, we went to her roof.
I know, probably not the safest idea, but it hadn’t started raining yet and the sky was still bright all around us.
Then it started raining in earnest and we decided it was probably best for me to head home. We’d only gotten rough cuts of half of our book trailers, but this is why it’s so great to have my sister: she insisted she’d get them done in the evening, and pushed me out the door. Before that though, it was just the two of us on the roof, admiring the world:
