Today is paperback release day for my Raphael, Painter in Rome (#AmazonAssoc)
When Oil and Marble came out in paperback, I didn’t celebrate it enough.
Partly because I didn’t realize how many readers and book clubs wait for the paperback, so I didn’t appreciate how important paperbacks are for reaching new audiences…
And also, partly, because I took the whole “releasing a book” thing for granted.
But now that I’m a few years, another book, and a whole global pandemic wiser, I know that I can’t ever again shrug off “releasing a new book thing” out into the world. Because it may or may not ever happen again.
Look, I had HUGE plans for the initial hardcover publication of my Raphael. It was released on April 7, 2020 — in conjunction with the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death on April 6, 1520, which would correspond with a GLOBAL celebration of the artist. I had book events planned all over the country. I ordered a literal truckload of books for those events.
And then we all know how that story ended: with cancellations and well-meaning virtual events that tried to live up to in-person celebrations, but ultimately fell short.
And now, here we go again: I have a new book thing — a paperback version — coming out. Just a few months ago, we all thought we’d be back to some sort of normalcy by the fall of 2021. But once again, I find myself arriving at a release day — that once promised such hope — compromised by the realities of COVID.
However, this time, we are still having an in-person celebration at Wordsworth Books in Little Rock. Yes, we will be masked, but I will be there — with books and sharpies in hand — to talk and read and gather with some family, friends, and fans.
And this time, I won’t let the moment pass me by without appreciating it. Because, yes, I’m writing a new novel, but who knows what the world will bring. And who knows how the next release — if there is one — will look.
So all I can do, as long as this world is still turning with me on it, is to keep embracing the good times as much as I can and, in honor of my dear Raphael, never stop trying to bend the world — at least a little — towards beauty.
