i hope somehow i'll wake up young again @nova-on-standbi - Tumblr Blog

every 1 is honestly beautiful and tragic like sometimes i can't look people in the eye because im like i know something is making you deeply irreversibly sad and you're just here talking to me about the weather and im going to let you

iceresurfacing

reslake

Pride Month upon ye

yangsgirlfriend69

I made it onto the Indie Bestseller list by posting on TikTok. Don’t do what I did.

IDK how to use tumblr but here are some thoughts

Maybe I should wait to write this, to have a little distance from publishing my book. When I see authors who are at the same place I am — a week and a day out from publication — their captions often sing the praises of their publishers. They’ll mention how grateful they are that all their hard work paid off, that the years of writing and editing and blood, sweat, tears, or whatever other bodily fluids they put into their manuscript were worth it for the moment the book came out.

For me, it wasn’t.

#

The writing process for How to Excavate a Heart was liberating. I came up with the idea while driving to a Long Island Panera (where all good ideas are formed), and started outlining it while eating their dubiously-sourced mac-and-cheese.

I then proceeded to, as I texted verbatim to at least three close friends, “fart out the novel.” I wrote it in about six weeks while on a train trip visiting family and friends, and I cherished every moment of the process.

That was in late 2019/early 2020, and it was the last time my feelings about the book were purely positive.

How to Excavate a Heart (HTEAH) sold in the late summer of 2020, to be published in Fall 2022. I was more focused on my debut novel, Almost Flying, that was slated to come out in the summer of 2021. Which it did, though if you didn’t know it existed you certainly wouldn’t be alone. It earned a Stonewall Honor from the American Library Association, and I think the week that happened it crested to a new high of 20 copies nation-wide or something depressing like that.

Needless to say, I was frustrated by what I saw as lack of support from my publisher, and was determined to not let the same fate befall HTEAH. I was already fairly active on TikTok after originating the Laura Dern Sitting Challenge (my one true claim to fame), but I had heard that TikTok was generally not a fruitful platform for authors, or that, even if authors were popular, it didn’t translate to book sales.

So of course my first thought was, “Why don’t I push this boulder uphill and see what happens?”

So I posted my first TikTok about HTEAH in February of 2022. It flopped in an expected way, but I continued to post about it consistently, and, over time, amassed a small following. The HTEAH hashtag grew (almost all the videos on it were are still are my own), and I was thrilled that people were hearing about my book.

At the time of writing this, the hashtag has over two million views, and I can directly trace over 1,000 individual sales/preorders of my book to TikTok and TikTok alone.

Here’s the price I paid: My girlfriend has watched my mental health slowly deteriorate over this time. She’s seen me quit writing to focus on promoting this book, for the small chance that, I don’t know, someone might care. And now some people do! Hooray.

I spent nine months promoting a book to get it to the sales that it might’ve gotten if my publisher had supported it. Or maybe not — I have no way of knowing. All I know is that if I hadn’t posted about the book on TikTok, you wouldn’t be reading this. It wouldn’t have gotten on the Indie Bestseller list. It wouldn’t have made the Indie Next list. It wouldn’t be a book box pick.

And I wouldn’t be so burnt out I can barely get up from the couch. I wouldn’t be depressed from staring at my phone all day.

Maybe if I hadn’t done all this, I’d be able to write again, to turn in work on time. To live each day without the fear that I’m not doing enough because if I don’t post a TikTok my book will sell horribly like my last one and then that’s it, I’ll be a failed author before my 25th birthday.

What a healthy mindset, huh?

So sure, if you post consistently on TikTok for nine months before your book comes out, enough people will buy your book that you might make it onto a list. But please, I beg of you, don’t. If your publisher doesn’t support you enough to give you marketing, don’t do it yourself. You cannot be an entire team. You cannot be your own publicist.

I am one person. And now I’m done.

Anyway, you can buy my book at excavateyourheart.com and you cannot find me on social media anymore (except maybe tumblr apparently). Stream Loneliest Time by CRJ.

godstiel

life is already so hard and then theres also weather

wellwaterhysteria

floating down the river styx on an inflatable donut and high-fiving all the lost souls i pass. i'm on vacation

e-seal-deactivated20210319

The names Practice

e-seal-deactivated20210319

Mal Practice

orchidvioletindigo

Nice to meet you Dr. Practice, could you please tell me what’s wrong with my son :)

e-seal-deactivated20210319

He needs surgery on all of his bones

orchidvioletindigo

Very well, here is my credit card :)

e-seal-deactivated20210319

I accept no payment I do this because I love it

depsidase

weaver-z

So how about that trailer

exitwound

i was born inside an airpod case 3 minutes ago your honor and i love abortion

atlassolid-prower

this is the most unhelpful post ever

exitwound

do i look like a fucking faq to you

exitwound

#f slur

is it a slur to ask questions frequently

suns-up-bunshine-deactivated202

Bitches be like ‘I’m so tired and sleepy’ and then stay up doing hyperfixtation shit for the next 5 hours

suns-up-bunshine-deactivated202

NO. NO. NO. THIS ISNT HAPPENING

wondermumbles

by talos

vaporwavesimulator

hey followers. have you ever wanted to know how it feels to be inside a bag of cornflakes

officialtokyosan

ye

vaporwavesimulator

enter the cornflakes domain

runby2

I fucking hate this website because not only did I click this goddamn link expecting it to be a joke of some sort, but it wasn’t a joke and I sat here spinning the screen around enjoying myself in a stupid bag of cornflakes like the dumbass monkey I am on Tumblr.com, enthralled by being in a bag of corn flakes in

tittytron

tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb

ironbound-oberon

#if you’re wondering if this is for you #it’s probably for you

lifeisaroughjourney

If I have ever messaged you or messaged me and never heard from me again, I still consider us friends. I just suck

slythsblog-deactivated20210808

me @ everyone who has ever talked to me on this website

get-elain-a-horse

I tumblr! My name is Elaine. You can see me in this picture! That is me holding the sign, HI! Well my hubby said that if this gets 1 MILLION notes, he will buy me a horse. I would love a horse I grew up on a farm where I rode and ate horses til i was 15 when I moved. I have not seen a horse since, not even a picture! Only one painting I painted in 7th grade. My husband obviously thinks this is going to be an impossible task thats why I am taking this on the interwebs where i can get likes. I have 5,000 on facebook so I am almost there. I want brown horse with some white. I will braid the hair. Thanks so much everyone! Please help me achieve this! :) God Bless