Category: bittersweet

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.

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By Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Here’s how a book begins: with a little tickle at the back of my neck, the sense that I have a magnificent, messy, uncontainable secret. It’s quiet and mine. When I walk down the street, I smile to myself like a crazy person because there’s a story growing inside my head, and no one else can see it.

The next phase is getting it down on paper. This sounds like the tap of the keyboard or the scratch of the pen- it’s still private, but it’s not silent anymore.  The act to get it down is compulsive, and a little overwhelming. Irresistible. This is the phase I’m in with the book I’m working on right now.

Soon, soon, I get to having to mention it to someone. Maybe my husband, maybe my agent, and, I guess these days, my editor. Hopefully they love it. Or, if they don’t hopefully what they say helps to make the tickle stronger, and doesn’t send it fleeing (this metaphor is getting all mixed up, but I can’t stop now).

Then the book becomes a kind of quiet conversation, a long conversation. Me and the page, back and forth, day in, day out. It’s a wrestling match, a game of wits and it lasts and lasts and lasts. Some days I cry, some days I feel triumphant, but it’s still just the two of us.

And then comes the day it heads into the world. Someone else reads it. Someone else tells me what they think. A louder conversation. Hopefully not a bad one.

It’s revision that comes next, and though that may feel loud, it’s still just me and the book and maybe a couple other folks thrown in. The point is, it still feels relatively private.

And then I wake up one day and it isn’t private anymore. The best case scenario is people are talking about my book. Hopefully they are saying nice things. But even if they’re saying nice things, it’s still odd. I’m still in the middle of a metaphorical dinner party with a lot of people talking about something that began as a private tickle that I walked down the street smiling like a lunatic about.

They tell people. They tell people. (Again, this is the ideal, right? But it’s still very strange, even when it happens), and soon enough the dinner party has turned into a wedding reception. There’s this murmur all around the book, and everyone who’s talking is talking about the book. You’re meant to have one topic of conversation: book! And that topic should have salient talking points, and you should keep your eyebrows plucked and wear nice jeans to the grocery store and try not to wear your enormous orange parka to special events because, well, everyone at the wedding reception is looking at you.

If all goes according to plan, the wedding reception becomes a dance party becomes a stadium filled with people, all talking and asking and thinking and wondering and buoying up the book, what began as private little idea, and the conversation in the stadium sounds like a roar. An absolute roar of triumph and terror and oh my god how did my little tiny idea suddenly become so big?

I’m still in the dinner party stage. But man, I’m eyeing that stadium that will, I’m hoping, will be full of people come May 13th. I’m grateful for that stadium. But also for the tickle at the back of my neck that’s keeping my nose to the grindstone.

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.

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So FriendStories launched last week, and it has gone viral! Oh wait, no it hasn’t. Let’s look at the actual number of visits to FriendStories this month:

While the site has been live for months, with a few “starter” stories, Miranda we officially launched it on January 20th, that enormous spike you see on the chart above. 62 visits on launch day.

I have mentioned this before with regards to Bittersweet – we are PREPARING a lot, but you can’t exactly plan for success. We are focusing our resources, brainstorming new ideas, encouraging a daily/weekly schedule of doing the non-glamourous work to push things forward, and reflecting on the range of value that comes from a process of launching a book.

With the FriendStories launch, Miranda is now posting new stories twice a week, and has enough stories either ready or in the works to last for a couple months. We talked about the idea of doing a “big launch” for the site, but she really wanted to just let this grow organically. Lots of good reasons behind that, but my guess is that one is that the site was born out of personal stories from writers she knows, and she doesn’t feel like disturbing that with over-promotion.

And there is always that elephant in the room when you launch something. You secretly hope for overwhelming success immediately. For other sites to pick it up; for friends to tell friends who tell friends; for a fan to create a hashtag that spreads wildly without your having to lift a finger; and for lots of positive feedback and new submissions.

So let’s consider what we HAVE really accomplished so far, what we have created beyond the naked number of “62.” My list so far:

• More stories have been written and shared – and this is writing beyond the book itself. Months before Bittersweet has been released, Miranda has already crafted several other stories of girlhood friendships, heard many others told to her from friends and colleagues, and has now encouraged these women to write and share those stories.
• Encouraging actions with relationships. We grow closer with others not by shaking their hands or “following” them on Twitter, but by engaging with shared experiences. Miranda has reached out to dozens of women to seek out these stories, and in the process, is forging new relationships, and extending existing relationships in new ways.
• Miranda has been and is continuing to explore the themes within her work through these FriendStories. This is not about “aggregating content” and “getting eyeballs,” she is genuinely moving her craft forward and exploring her work more deeply through them.
• She launched something. That alone, is just a huge milestone. So many people talk about ideas, and I think actually constructing it, launching it, and sharing it publicly is a wonderful habit to create, especially a writer. And what I like most about this is that it is something that is related to Bittersweet, but separate from it. This site could potentially exist on its own for years, constantly evolving.

Oh, and the 62 page views.
🙂

Congratulations to Miranda on sharing these stories, and THANK YOU to all the contributors so far! And of course, you can become a part of FriendStories here.
-Dan

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.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I realized last night, as I was lying in bed, that it was a year ago this past Friday that my agent and I got an email back from Christine, who would become my editor at Crown. She’d stayed up reading Bittersweet, and had dreamed of summer that night, and she wanted me to know she loved the book. (Squee!)

But!

She didn’t love the ending, and was wondering: would I be open to changing it?

My agent called me immediately. It was Friday afternoon by this point, and I had the kiddo all day Saturday, but what I felt, as Anne explained some of Christine’s notes, was “yes.” Not just because Christine was the first editor in a string of editors (in, let’s be honest, a string of books) who might actually be saying “yes” to me, but because what she was saying was editorially sound and true. She was advocating for my characters in a way no one else had in years.

My agent, Anne, is flinty and honest and I love that about her. She said, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if this new ending was waiting in Christine’s inbox on Monday morning?”

But I had the kid all day Saturday! And these changes were new and big and ambitious and would change the whole tone of the book (making it, yes, more bittersweet than it had ever been)! And yet I knew she was right: I had to try to get something done by work starting on Monday. Because my book had already stood apart in Christine’s head. But what if I, as a writer, could stand apart too?

So I called up my son’s former babysitter and she kindly welcomed him into her home all day Saturday. And I cancelled my Sunday brunch plans and holed up in my office, and using Christine’s notes as a blueprint, and a particularly brilliant suggestion from Anne, rewrote the last twenty pages of Bittersweet.

They were waiting in Christine’s inbox a year ago today, on Monday morning. And though it was nearly three weeks until the book was bought on Valentine’s Day, and those intervening days were nerve-wracking and hope-filled, I believed that I was at the beginning of something exciting. It’s been a great year since.

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.

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By Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I’m going to sound like your grandmother, but here goes:

When in doubt, write a thank you note.

I’m talking to you, writers. I’m talking about spending some money on some fancy stationery, unearthing your fountain pen, and putting some appreciative thoughts down on paper. Thank you notes: they’re your secret weapons.

See also: chocolate bars for the subrights people who’ve sold your book abroad; holiday presents for the marketing and publicity and editorial people who are getting the word out about your project; small, topical presents for the people who blurb your book or go above and beyond to spread the word on your behalf; handwritten thank you’s to the independent booksellers with whom you have even a tenuous relationship, and which can be sent out with your galley when the times comes; and yes, using the acknowledgements section of your book to its utmost potential.

(See also: handwritten notes to authors you are asking to blurb your work, in which you make it clear you have actually READ their work, and point out what about that work is compelling to you before you ask them to do you the huge favor of reading, and then writing positively, about your book).

Why should you write thank you notes and the like?

Well let me ask you this: when was the last time you were the recipient of a handwritten thank you note (or another, similar, appreciative gesture)? In this digital age, I’ll bet you remember it. I’ll bet you spent some time with that note, that you smiled at it, and felt happy that whatever you had done for that person, which prompted the “thank you,” actually mattered to them. I’ll bet you’d be more likely to do the same thing for them again.

That’s why you should write some yourself. Being genuinely generous, genuinely appreciative, and showing that you’ve taken the time to SIT DOWN WITH FANCY STATIONARY AND A FOUNTAIN PEN to say thank you especially to whomever you were thanking- that you didn’t just write an email, or send them a text, or post on their Facebook wall, or or or- is a form of human connection! And if there’s anything we need more of in the publishing world, it’s human connection. It’s breaking down the behemoth of the publishing machine and remembering we’re all people.

Also, make sure you spell their name right.

Okay, off my grandma soapbox.

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.

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By Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

The idea for my web project, FriendStories, grew out of Bittersweet, but I can’t claim credit for it. What happened was this: I was writing a book. People I know and like knew and liked that I was writing a book. So they’d ask me about it. Usually the question goes something like, “What’s it about?” In the early days of working on a book, this is a very difficult question to answer- much more difficult than it seems it should be- because I don’t really actually know all the way what the book is “about.” And yet, with Bittersweet, I knew enough to say: “It’s about two best friends from college- one of them’s a plain-Jane named Mabel, the other is her beautiful, wealthy roommate, Ev. Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer at her family’s estate on Lake Champlain, and that’s when things get interesting.” (There were a lot more “ums” in there when I first started answering that question).

In any case, what happened next was, to my mind, amazing, because it happened nearly every time, especially when a woman was the one who’d asked me to share the gist of my book.

To a woman, each listener almost immediately responded to my little spiel with: “I had a best friend in fourth grade and…” or “There was this girl I loved and hated in high school…” or “I love stories about best friends because my best friend and I have known each other since…”

You see what I mean? My unelegant, unpracticed little spiel was consistently spurring potential readers to spill their guts about their own best friends! Better yet, these stories ran the gamut from juicy to shocking to hilarious to heart-breaking. And better yet, each time I found myself on the edge of my seat, eager to hear what had happened next.

In my own reaction to these stories, and in these listeners’ reactions to mine, I discovered a hidden truth: that tales of girlhood friendship have something innately riveting about them. Maybe not to everyone, but definitely to me, and definitely to those friends whose stories spilled forth unprompted.

So I started thinking about how I might create a space for those stories to live.

A couple months after I sold Bittersweet, I went into Crown to meet my editor. Also there was Molly Stern, the publisher of Crown. I was a little scared to meet her, but she made me feel right at home, most especially because one of the first things she said to me was, “You know, your book really got me thinking about my own girlhood friendships…”

Aha! There it was again. The publisher of my publishing house was sharing something as deeply intimate as her girlhood friendships with me because my book had made her want to! I went home that night with a resolve to create a place where such stories could live together. I really didn’t know anything about running (or building) a website, and so, I was grateful that when Dan and I started working together the following month, he agreed that this was a project worth pursuing, and assured me he’d be with me the whole time, holding my hand.

We spent last summer brainstorming about FriendStories- what we wanted it to look and feel like, what we wanted the experience of the reader to be. I knew I wanted it to be simple and clear- simply a place to share stories of girlhood friendships. Honest but respectful, and, in focusing on the story of a friendship (or a particular moment in a friendship), shedding a light on the person telling the story. Easy to contribute to; clear guidelines, but with room to grow.

Around that time, I started sifting through photos of my own childhood, and realized I loved the saturated, Kodak film, 1980’s color of those pictures. They were nostalgic, vibrant, and eye-catching. Next, we thought about how to talk about the project. Then I came up with a list of people I could ask to help.

This list has been very central to this project. I crafted a basic email, describing the FriendStories project, asking if the person in question would like to contribute, and laying out some clear guidelines. Over the course of the fall, I sent this email out to writers, yes, but also to non-writing friends- both in person, or via social media. People I knew I had a good chance of connecting with, who I thought would find something in this project that allured them.

And you know what happened? People wanted to contribute! People started to contribute! People promised to contribute!

Come January, we knew we had enough FriendStories banked to get us through the next couple months, with two stories being posted a week. The frequency with which we post may increase, based on how many new FriendStories are contributed over the course of the winter and spring; I don’t have the answer for that yet. And I’m not sure if the way we’ve gone about soliciting requests will be the way we do it in the future; eventually, my list of people to contact will run out, and hopefully by then the project will have been buoyed up by its own momentum, but if not, that’ll be something I’ll have to figure out.

Is this a promotional project for Bittersweet? Well, yes, to some degree. I’m five months out from publication, and I love the idea of this project growing over the course of the spring, offering people who might not know about me a chance to come at the book from another direction. But let’s put it this way: it isn’t just a promotional project. Its growth has been utterly organic, and that’s one of the things I’ve taken the most pleasure about with it- it feels as though it sprang into being because there was a need for it. Bittersweet, and how it urged women to talk to me, helped me identify that need. But FriendStories is what is fulfilling that need. It’s nice not to be alone with it anymore- I’m excited to see where FriendStories takes both me, Bittersweet, the readers and the contributors as the months pass!