Thank you…take 2
So…one week has passed. I’m not sure how it happened… One moment it was the 24th, then ten bazillion tweets, interviews, guest posts, Pinterest pins, emails, and loving comments later, it was suddenly the 31st.
I have never, ever, EVER felt so much love. Truly, you all made the book’s release day (and the days following) the MOST SPECIAL DAYS OF MY LIFE. And it’s still happening! As more people read the book, more emails and more tweets show up on my feed and remind me why I ever set out to be a writer…
You see, I think it’s easy to forget WHY we all started out with this whole writing thing… We get caught up in the “getting of an agent” and “keeping up with the trends”. Then we get wrapped up in selling our books to a publisher and worrying if OUR deal will be as big as THEIR deal–as if deal size and the time it takes to sell a book are somehow measures of the story’s quality. Guys, it isn’t.
Nor does how much push our publisher gives us mean ANYTHING about the story we wrote. How high our Amazon ranks shoot or whether we hit the famous “Lists”–these don’t matter either.
Why doesn’t any of that matter? Because at the end of the day, did ANY OF US set out to write something for those reasons? Maybe we wanted to get published eventually, but I find it doubtful that any of YOU (my dear, dear readers) sat down at your desks one day and thought, “Huh. I think I’ll write a book so I can become a NY Times Bestseller.”
No, we all sat down at our desks because we had a story to tell. A story in our hearts that we just needed to get onto the page. That we just needed to share with the world.
And I am finally getting to share one of MY stories. One of many, many more stories nestled deep within my chest (I like to imagine my stories cuddling somewhere behind my heart). The highlight of this past week and the highlight of waking up each morning is getting tweets/emails/Facebook messages/etc. from readers who loved Something Strange and Deadly.
Sure, there are a lot of people out there who probably hated the book, and that’s fine. That’s LIFE. I have read so many books in my life that I didn’t enjoy…that I set aside to never finish. It didn’t mean the book was bad; it meant the book wasn’t for me. And Something Strange and Deadly won’t be for everyone.
But for the people who DID love Something Strange and Deadly–for the people who took the time to let me know they loved Eleanor and Daniel/sank into the world/can’t wait for the sequel–you all reminded me why I ever started writing. I shared my story–my feelings–with you, and you gave me even more in return:
You reminded me that I write to share. You reminded me that YOU, my new and old readers alike, are the reason a writer WRITES.
So thank you. Thank you for bringing my launch week to a wonderful, beautiful close. Thank you for going out and buying the book. Thank you for spreading the word online. Thank you for being with me this long and continuing to stick with me even longer.
Thank you to Shane at Itching for Books for hosting such an amazing blog tour and going to downright amazing measures to promote Something Strange and Deadly on Twitter and in the blogosphere. You–and ALL THE BLOGGERS ON THE TOUR–really made my release week something special.
And also, thank you to Sarah Maas, Erin Bowman, Kat Zhang, Leigh Bardugo, Amie Kaufman, and Marie Lu for setting up this AMAZING #SSaDOutbreak. I have so, SO much love for you girls. You know I do, yet I don’t know if you realize just HOW MUCH love it is.
To the winners–and ALL the participants of not only the #SSaDOutbreak giveaways but all the others going on across the web (such as Shane’s and the Dark Faerie Tales blog and Kat Brauer and Meredith McCardle and many, many others ), THANK YOU for taking the time to try for all these great prizes. ♥ And–just in case the #SSaDOutbreak winners missed their prizes–here’s a recap…
- 7/23 giveaway winner of a finished e-copy of SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY and the ARC of Tahereh Mafi’s UNRAVEL ME is….Gabby Matlock!
- 7/24 giveaway winner of a finished copy of SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY is…Sydney R.!
- 7/25 giveaway winner of ARCs of ORIGIN by Jessica Khoury and SKINNY by Donna Cooner is… Sara M!
- 7/26 giveaway winner of a SS&D-themed parasol and a query critique from amazing agent Joanna Volpe is…Juli @ The Reviews News!
Now, to announce the winner of yesterday’s giveaway from Marie Lu–a signed copy of LEGEND…
~Cionie from deviantArt!
Congratulations!! But wait–there’s more! Now I get the pleasure of announcing the final winner of the HUGE grand prize giveaway in the #SSaDOutbreak. This person will win:
- A $30 amazon gift card
- An ARC of MIND GAMES by Kiersten White
- An ARC of CARNIVAL OF SOULS by Melissa Marr
- An ARC of THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater
- A signed paperback copy of DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth
- A limited-edition “Aim for the Knees” SOMETHING STRANGE & DEADLY t-shirt
- If you are a writer, then Erin Bowman and Sarah Maas will BOTH critique the first 2500 words of your YA manuscript (any genre)!
- If you are a writer, then the absolutely amazing agent, Joanna Volpe, will critique your YA query letter (any genre)!
- An ARC of THE DARK UNWINDING
- An ARC of BUTTER
- An ARC of BURN FOR BURN
I feel like we need a drum roll here. This reader not only bought a copy of Something Strange and Deadly, but she took some amazingly clever pictures with it for the #SSaDOutbreak board on Pinterest!!
Katie O’Shea!!
To both ~Cionie and Katie, send an email to SSADOutbreak@gmail.com to receive your prize(s)! Congrats and THANK YOU!!!
Oh, and to everyone: If you live in the West Michigan area, don’t miss my signing tonight with Anne Greenwood Brown (author of LIES BENEATH). We’ll be speaking, signing, and giving away swag at Schuler Books on Alpine Avenue in Grand Rapids!
Now YOU ALL tell me: If you’re a writer, WHY do you write? If you’re a reader, do you ever let an author know you loved their book?
July 31, 2012 @ 4:36 pm
As a reader, I do let the author know I loved their book (and you made my day the other day on twitter by replying by the way…)
As a writer, I write for several reasons: 1) because I want to tell a story and my fingers, my mind won’t rest until I do (even if it can be painful from times to times), 2) because I want people to read my story and get to love the characters as much as I do, sometimes it almost feels like I’m writing for them, for my characters (and it just totally sounded weird…), 3) because it makes me happy 😀
Thanks again for such a wonderful book, Susan! And at some point, I’d love to hear on how you adjusted to Germany with a French husband 😀 (as a French person who met my German hubby in the US and currently living in Germany too :D)
July 31, 2012 @ 7:31 pm
Whoa! Where are you from? Your English is SPECTACULAR. Way better than my hubby’s! And yay! I’m so glad 1) that you read SS&D, 2) that you let me know (it means sooooo much to me), and 3) that you left a comment here. 😀 Readers/writers unite!
July 31, 2012 @ 9:27 pm
😀 THANKS! Can you please tell my hubby this? He still makes fun of my accent even though he did say tonight again – as I was reading him my WiP – that said-WIP does sound like a real book 😀 So I guess my English is not that bad…He is German but in the US everybody thought he was from Pennsylvania – he almost has no accent!
I am so so excited that the sequel of SS&D will take place in Paris!
I am originally from a small village an hour North of Paris (near Chantilly/Creil), I lived in the US for about 7 years (as an au pair and then I studied/worked there – Maryland), and now I call Mainz “home” 😀
….and that was just a LOT of info into a comment reply lol 😀
How do you like living in Germany? Do you speak German at all? How about French?
And yes for Readers/Writers uniting! I think we should have a slogan or something 😀
August 1, 2012 @ 5:21 am
Um, what are the odds? My husband is from near Chantilly–in Gouvieux!!!! He wants to know where exactly you grew up…
I speak some German, though I understand it much better than I speak it. And my French is…pretty much non-existent. I figure whenever we have kids, Sébastien will speak to the kids in French, and I’ll learn with them.
August 1, 2012 @ 8:18 am
Sending you an email 😀 This is quite funny and it is a very small world after all!
July 31, 2012 @ 5:49 pm
Oh my god. Why, why, WHY can’t I drive? Grand Rapids is three hours away from me. Just three. Dear god, I wish I could be there, and I would if not for lack of transportation! (Why not Toledo? So close!)
But just to note I did read SS&D and I loved it and was very sad when…someone died. On the off chance that someone reads this comment without reading the book first, I will leave that person nameless.
July 31, 2012 @ 7:33 pm
Booooo! That is soooo tragic. 🙁 🙁 🙁 I had no idea you were in Toledo–CRAP. Not that it would have chaned where this signing is happening, but…you know.
And THANK YOU for reading SS&D. You have no idea how hard it was for me to kill That Person. I adored That Person and wanted redemption…but it just wasn’t how the story’s dice fell. I knew what that That Person’s fate was from the very beginning, and it just had to be death… Tear.
July 31, 2012 @ 6:29 pm
I write for the same reason most writers write, and that’s to tell a story that I love, even if everyone who reads it won’t enjoy it as much as I do.
As a reader, I do like to contact the author of a book that I thoroughly enjoyed and tell them how much the book meant to me. Any writer who has ever responded back to me has always been very gracious and kind, especially you, Susan!
Have a great time at your Grand Rapids signing!
July 31, 2012 @ 7:34 pm
Thanks, Lori!! And thank you for going to the trouble to reach out to me…and to reach out to other authors (among whose ranks you will one day be). It’s such an incredible feeling to learn just how much someone enjoyed a book. <3
August 1, 2012 @ 2:47 am
It was no trouble to reach out to you, because you’re an incredibly wonderful person. I wish you all the best with your writings. And THANK YOU for believing in me, even when I cannot do so sometimes <3
July 31, 2012 @ 9:11 pm
Okay, first off – as a reader (and now a book blogger), telling an author how I felt about their book is very important to me. Since I write myself, I understand how good it feels to know someone else just gets what you were trying to say here, or laughs out loud at that goof-up there. And it’s helped me meet a lot of good authors and learn more about the craft I’m trying my best to perfect.
Now, about why I write…
When I was young(er) and foolish, I used to think that the only reason to write was to get it on a shelf and rack in the money a la J.K. Rowling.
In my defense, I was ten.
That was like a decade ago, and as I matured, started experimenting with my style, discovered new genres to play with and seriously delved into the writing world, I realized that writing isn’t so much a career as it is a part of me. I think Sarah Beth Durst put it best when she visited our library a year or so back – “I write to stay sane; if I don’t write, I think I would be a pretty mean, grumpy person”. It described me to a T, and I think that was when I realized that I write for me and to at least give my characters a life outside of my head for a little while, even if I’m the only audience they ever meet.
Not that I want to leave it at that, but I’m trying to stay realistic and keep on going. There are a lot of drawbacks and moments where I angst inwardly and rail at myself for EVER thinking I could be happy without publication. But I’m getting there, and I have to say, Susan, that you are really one of my heroes. Every of your posts recently has been putting me through a freaking emotional wringer. <3
Congratulations, and many more beautiful book releases to you! (And here I go to re-read SS&D…)
July 31, 2012 @ 9:34 pm
I write because I’ve always written. I’ve always had these stories in my head, or characters that pop up out of nowhere and I write them down because I don’t know what else to do with them. ^_^ Mostly I write because I love to delve into another world even if it’s just for my eyes only. I love the discovery of finding out who my characters are going to be, what they’re going to be able to get through and how they’re going to triumph in the end. For me, writing is a grand adventure and a chance to delve into my imagination. And I figure that so long as I have plot bunnies spinning and characters yakking in my head, I’m bound to keep on writing.
August 1, 2012 @ 1:38 am
As a reader, I always try my hardest to let the author know I loved their book. A lot of the times I can’t express how MUCH I loved their book, and so I end up looking like a complete fanboy of a mess.
The short explanation: as a writer, I write because I want to tell a story that just won’t leave my heart and soul alone (Curse you soulstories! Why must you keep revealing yourselves?! There is just SO. MANY.)
The long answer: When I read a certain book that I love, and I get this surge of emotion: how much I love these characters, how amazing and REAL (mostly in the case of fantasy and such) the world is/how original and refreshing it is, and how much I care about what happens next in the story, how I gasp in surprise or break down in tears or roll on the floor laughing. And then desperately searching for other books by that author or new books like it that will MAKE ME FEEL THE SAME WAY, and most of time, that doesn’t happen, but it just makes THAT story more special. It makes me love it more. All of those emotions that I feel as a reader- I want to make people feel that when they read my stories. I want them to throw the book on the floor in anger or get the pages wet with their tears, and for them to feel how real my characters are and make them care for them as much as I do.
A long explanation, but it fits.
August 1, 2012 @ 2:14 pm
Sometimes I write because I’m genuinely inspired, other times to keep myself from falling asleep in class. It really varies, but it’s one of the things that I will forever love my best friend for– because she was the one who introduced me to it.
I’ve only ever written to an author once and six years later, I’m kind of cringing at how gushy I sounded, so I think I’ll stick to silently appreciating their work, haha!
August 2, 2012 @ 3:09 pm
Such great points! I actually wrote down, very early when I started writing for realsies, “I want to write one person’s favorite book.” That reminded me that it didn’t matter if I wrote a book that sold well, that made lots of money, that everyone liked–the important part was telling the story I had to tell as well as I could tell it 🙂
August 6, 2012 @ 11:16 pm
Okay. So I write because I come from a loooong line of creative types and if I DIDN’T have an outlet, y’all would really not like me. I’m a very systematic person and do well at the day job (boring logistics stuffs) but I need to unwind through writing. It used to be art. Now it’s words. Tomorrow? Who knows! I cannot WAIT to get my hands on SS&D, Sooz! I’ve been following the hub-bub over at Pub Crawl and look forward to reading.