Why would anyone pick up my little book?
I’m just a girl, standing in Barnes & Noble, feeling completely overwhelmed.
Cross-posted on Substack.
This summer was so good to me. (I mean, it sucked in a lot of ways—hello, heat waves, constant rain, unprecedented storms, wildfire smoke, stomach flu, and a sinus infection… Honestly, I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in these past ten weeks.) But if we ignore a lot of that icky stuff, WHAT A WILD SUMMER. Two book releases??? A book tour??? Signed books in EIGHT STATES?! What even is this life?
Alas, I must return to my day job today of all days. And yesterday morning, I sent my big kid off to middle school and my little kid off to first grade. Not to mention Not on the Same Page will be released on Tuesday.
I’m just along for the ride. And I have thoughts.
But first…
We’re back to travel mugs and mid-day Dunkin runs, my friends. There isn’t enough caffeine in the world for the week I have coming up, but it’s going to be SO GOOD. A new year! A new book! Meeting readers and students and setting up my classroom and maybe a little writing in between. It’s going to be awesome…and then I’m going to need approximately 15 business days to recover. But I am so, so excited! It’s going to be great.
Before this summer, I hadn’t been book shopping for myself in a Barnes & Noble in a really long time. I don’t generally read paperbacks, and when I do get them these days, they’re purchased from authors directly, sent to me as a thank you for beta reading, or I’ve grabbed one I’ve been eyeing when I visit an indie store.
But I used to go to B&N all the time. There was one right down the street from my house. It’s a mattress store now. Or maybe it sells gym equipment? I’m not sure. But in high school, we’d meet there for study groups or just to chat. The cafe portion was more open than the local Starbucks. Brighter. And all my friends were nerds (complimentary), so we loved being able to hang out, drink coffee, and wander around the bookstore.
In college, it was Borders. (Remember Borders?) By then, I was into music as much as books, and my friends and I would spend hours picking out albums, scanning them into the machines so we could listen to sample tracks and share our favorites with each other.
Every time I’d go to either of these stores, I’d wander the aisles, picking up books and turning them over, feeling them in my hands. I’d usually let the cover or my intuition drive my choices, but I’d always—ALWAYS—leave with a new book I’d finish in a week or so, and then the cycle would start again.
Wait, who am I talking to? You’re readers. You know all about this process.
The thing is, like I said, I haven’t done this in a long time. With the advent of digital media, I lost the tactile element of shopping. And I didn’t realize I missed it! I still had books and music, after all. I wasn’t on an island.
Any time I’d go into B&N, it’d be with my kids. I’d let them wander, but book shopping for myself with children in tow shockingly wasn’t the relaxing experience it used to be. Going for myself—by myself—felt indulgent. When we were knee-deep in the newborn and toddler years, paying for daycare that’s as much as public college tuition and trying to make ends meet, it wasn’t in the budget for either my time or my finances to buy books that way. And who was to say they wouldn’t have ended up ruined by a child, anyway? More likely, they’d sit on a shelf, unread. And while I love books, there were just other priorities at the time.
Perhaps related, I spent a lot of time at the library during those years.
But when your book appears at a Barnes & Noble…no, at several Barnes & Nobles, you go see it there. I don’t make the rules.
The first time I walked into a B&N to see my book, I was with my PA, Kayla. We needed a place to stop on our way up to The Well Red Damsel, and the store happened to have a copy of Not a Strong Enough Word, so we took a little detour. It was exciting, nerve-racking, exhilarating, and everything you might expect from walking into a bookstore to look for your book on a shelf.
And then, I was immediately overwhelmed. Not because, OMG my book is here, but because OMG how is anyone going to find it among all these other gorgeous books?? It’s a strange thing, being on the other side. I kind of equate it to the first time you’re a teacher in the classroom instead of a student—you start to look at things totally differently. You understand what it took to get to this point, and you’re much kinder to your past teachers in retrospect. You also start to realize that you’re a teacher because you liked school, and you’re now teaching a bunch of kids who don’t.
Essentially, you are not your target audience.
So, walking through Barnes & Noble, doing the alphabet song in my head to find my last name, and then seeing my book on the shelf was exciting, but it was also daunting as hell. My book—that huge thing that came pouring out of my soul and consumed me for the better part of two years—was so tiny next to all the other gorgeous books. I mean, sure, it’s comparably sized to what’s on the shelves in a literal sense, but when I saw it amongst all the others, it blended in. It was one among many.
A humbling experience, indeed.
It’s almost like dropping your kid off at their first day of school only to watch the horde of other kids sweep them up and the big school building swallow them all.
Cue the internal panic, because I want people to find this thing and read it. How is anyone going to find my little book amongst so many options? Why would they even bother to give it a second look, let alone pick it up, turn it over in their hands, read the back cover, take it home?
When I drop my kids off at school, I never hope they’ll be the most popular. I don’t wish for them to be the center of the universe. I’m also a teacher—I know what it’s like to have your attention pulled in so many different directions. Of course, I want my kids to be treated like the unique gems they are, but I’m not a fool. I know there are many, many gems, and all of them deserve their moment.
What we wish for when we send our kids out into the world is that, on any given day, one person will see them, appreciate them. The same isn’t exactly true for our books, obviously, because there are so many copies of them scattered throughout the country, but at the core of it, it’s not so different. When I was in school—visiting a bookstore, wandering through the aisles, letting my fingertips graze the spines and landing on one that looked interesting enough to pull off the shelf—I was searching for something that would make me feel seen. Maybe, in that way, the books were finding me.
And when my book finds the right readers, it’s not a small thing at all. Maybe it helps them feel seen. Maybe it becomes something bigger than a book for them. It takes up space, opens their minds, expands their horizons. Books did that for me. They changed the trajectory of my whole life. They became my life.
I’m working on trusting the process. I have a team now, and they want the same thing I do. They’re helping to set my books up for success, making sure they get in the hands of people who will treat them like the unique gems they are. But I have another little book releasing next week, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous to send her out into the world.
I hope someone finds it who needs it. I hope they trail their fingers along the spines on the shelf and stop when they see the gorgeous teal on the spine. I hope they pull it down and read the back and smell the pages. I hope they take it home and let it consume them like it consumed me. I hope, for a little while, it’s bigger than just a book. I hope they feel seen.
But from this side, I will never not be humbled. Out of all the books out there, you chose mine. And that is something truly special.
Not a Strong Enough Word – Available Now * Not on the Same Page – August 18, 2026 * Not the Way it Ends – November 10, 2026
Preorder now to get the limited edition sprayed edges and goodies from your favorite indie bookstore!
There’s still time to preorder Not on the Same Page! Not much time! You have to hurry! But you can!!
You can grab hand-signed copies from The Atlas Collective, The Well Red Damsel, and Love’s Sweet Arrow! Or, if you prefer, you can get your book with the preorder incentives and a signed bookplate from Romance-landia, Shelf Love DSM, and Chapter & Coast.
And don’t forget to grab your tickets to see me! It’s going to be a great time.
August 15 – Anderson’s After Dark
Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL
August 18 – Release Party/Q&A and signing for Not on the Same Page
In conversation with Eliza MacArthur
Love’s Sweet Arrow in Tinley Park, IL
August 20 – Q&A and signing for Not on the Same Page
In conversation with Melonie Johnson
Barnes & Noble in Oakbrook, IL
August 22 – Q&A and signing for Not on the Same Page
The Atlas Collective in Moline, IL
August 24 – Bedazzling Not on the Same Page
The Well Red Damsel in Wauwatosa, WI
August 25 – Virtual Q&A event for readers who preorder Not on the Same Page
With exclusive character art, a bookplate, and stickers mailed to you!
In conversation with Hannah Bird
Strangers to Friends to Lovers | Mutual Pining | Spicy Book Club | Reenact Spicy Book Scenes | Dual POV | Small Town | Grief Rep | Caretaking | Road Trip
For those of you starting school, or dropping your kids off at school, or both, I hope you have the best year. We got this.
Happy reading,
