The Road to Publication

Big book news and newsletter updates

For several weeks I have had to keep my lips zipped about the most exciting thing to happen for me professionally in a whole-ass decade. I’m stoked to finally tell you we struck a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster last month and my second novel, Hot Wax, is slated for publication in spring of 2025. What comes after that, only time will tell, but I’m eager and excited to be working with Tim O’Connell and the rest of the S&S team over the next few years.

What to say about this book? In early drafts I described it to my agent as Almost Famous meets Thelma & Louise. I’ve called it a mosaic, a scrapbook, a travelogue. You could read it as 400 pages of liner notes for an imaginary rock band and you wouldn’t be wrong. You could call it the case notes of a woman losing her mind and leaving everything behind in a desperate effort to find out where and how her life went off the rails. You could think of it as a love letter to analog audio and roads less traveled, or an odyssey through the best and worst of last century’s pop culture. A novel contains multitudes.

I wrote the first version of this book seven years ago, before Villains had even come out. I was living in London at the time, juggling revisions and the pub campaign with coursework and my master’s thesis. It didn’t leave much time for writing new material, and the only space I could make for fresh ideas was on the Tube, on rambling walks around the city, on trains and planes to other places. Maybe this is why I was drawn to this particular idea: I was determined to make the most of my Visa by travelling as much as possible around the UK and Europe and filled the long transit hours with music. I always wanted to write about road trips and concert tours, and once my thesis was submitted and I moved to a flat in the cultural farrago of the East End, I martialed all my research and attacked the first draft in earnest.

And then things got rocky. But I don’t want to bore you with the all the gory details yet. Instead, I want to outline how this development will affect this newsletter.

2025 might seem like a long way away. (You can read a little more about the pace of publishing here if you’re curious why publication timelines are so long.) The good news is there will be plenty of my writing for you to read in the meantime. Besides my first novella, Graveyard Shift, which is slated for a September release and available for pre-order now, I’ll be revamping this newsletter to better serve you, dear readers, and me, your friendly neighborhood inkslinger.

Because one of my core objectives as a literary citizen is to demystify the publishing industry from the inside, I’ve spent my first few months on Substack gathering data about my readers and what they want to see (if you have ideas about that, I’d love to hear them, so please leave a comment below). I’ve spent the last few weeks developing a fresh content calendar for 2024 with that in mind. Because one of my other core objectives is to make my writing career sustainable in the long term, I’m introducing paid tiers for this newsletter.

As of now, there are two paid subscription options: $5 monthly or $50 annually. Just to sweeten the deal, if you sign up between now and February 14, you can get another 20% off a yearly subscription: do that here. You can also try before you buy with a free trial and the option to renew. If you sign up as a founding member—the generous folks I’m calling Pen Pals—you’ll get some special perks as a token of my appreciation. If you can’t afford a $5/month subscription, don’t fret: plenty of content will still be available for free.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect going forward:

Free subscriptions

Two “Craft” series posts on the first and third Tuesday of each month.

These longer posts deal with the creative part of writing. While you may hear specific examples from my own work, they’re designed for a general readership. You can see some examples from my “Revision 101” series here.

Two “Earworm” series posts on the first and third Wednesday of each month.

This is a new feature where I’ll discuss the music which has influenced my writing and some of the history behind it (you can find some of my existing music writing here), with a companion playlist available on Spotify. The first of those will go up tomorrow.

The “Weekend Roundup” every Sunday.

These short posts offer a few behind-the-scenes snapshots of what’s fueling me creatively from week to week. You can see past entries here.

Paid subscriptions

Two “Road to Publication” posts on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month.

This is a new series I can’t wait to share with you. Every two weeks, I’ll check in with a longer post detailing what I’ve been up to behind the scenes as Graveyard Shift and Hot Wax make their way towards their respective pub days. These posts will outline the goings-on behind closed doors in publishing in real time, so if you’ve ever wanted to get a peek behind the scenes, consider a paid subscription.

Two “Marginal Notes” on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month.

This is another new series which will feature short posts about what I’m reading and why. These might include comp titles, research materials, industry newsletters, academic monographs, magazines, and more. You can think of it as a virtual tour of my bookshelves. I’ll also be updating my shelves on Bookshop.org so you can find these titles easily.

“Office hours” every Friday.

On Fridays, paid subscribers will have the opportunity to send me questions directly and participate in a closed discussion board. This is an informal space to ask whatever questions you might have about publishing, craft, my professional journey or yours. We’ll have our first open Office Hours this week, on January 26, so you can get a sense of what that will look like. Be sure to drop in if you want to ask about Hot Wax or anything else.

Unlimited access to the archives.

Everything I’ve posted will be available for two weeks and then paywalled for subscribers.

Pen Pal members

If you want to support me or this newsletter in a bigger way, you can become a founding PenPal, at three different levels: at $150, I’ll send you a signed, personalized postcard and one gift subscription. At $200, I’ll you a postcard and a Polaroid from my research travels, along with two gift subscriptions. For $250 or more, you’ll get a postcard, a Polaroid, two gift subscriptions, and a book chosen by me, especially for you, after an email interview.

These tiers may change in the future, but I am committed to keeping this as affordable as possible.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who reads this newsletter, who reads my books and shares them with other readers, who makes it possible for me to make art while also making a living. I hope that whatever small wisdom I have about books and the business will be useful to those of you navigating creative careers of your own. Thanks for going on this long, strange trip with me.