Who were we kidding? A woman of color to be the next U.S. President? No can do. That mountain of American racism and misogyny is just too steep. Pundits and others will debate and blame Trump’s assassination attempt, defecting Latinos, or lies about migrants eating cats that stuck and held. But it really just comes down to racism and misogyny and the voters who couldn’t countenance being led by the obvious choice: a strong black-Asian woman.
So here we are. Life and commerce must go on, and for me, that includes releasing my debut book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, next Tuesday, November 12. This is launch week, which means doing everything I can to support my publisher, WildBlue Press, in rolling out Chained Birds. This effort includes recording a podcast later today with Jim Harold for his Crime Scene podcast, where I’ll talk about my book and pretend Trumpocalypse 2.0 hasn’t started.
Two days ago, someone asked in one of my favorite Reddit subreddits, r/PubTips, how the U.S. election would impact publishing timelines. Some authors chimed in that they were launching books on election day, as the first Tuesday of a month is a traditional publishing day. Other authors, like me, were coming out with books later in the month. The Reddit crowd was quite sympathetic, with one user stating anyone gearing up for a launch “that would be, as Ned Flanders once said, a dilly of a pickle.”
Another user, a nonfiction author, was more dire. “… if I were debuting tomorrow, it would be a death sentence … Cheering you on!” (At least my publisher had the good sense to wait a week after the election to launch my book.)
One Redditor opined on the acquisition part of the book industry and said that if Harris loses, “I think there will be a serious slow down as people grapple with the what the fuck of it all, and then we might see more cozy, funny, light books being bought (by editors).”
Another user, who’d seen this horror movie before, added, ” I worked in publishing in 2016 too, and our offices were dead quiet: I don’t think I got anything substantial done for like a week. But eventually people will pick back up; eventually things will move again.”
I am counting on this.
The year 2024 joins 2016 and 2020 (COVID) as among the shittiest in my lifetime. But this is also the year I become a published author, so, waddayagonnado? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s a good thing I like to write, because that’s how I deal with trauma. I have many more books in me, and several are outlined. More keyboard time, more family and friends gatherings, more pickleball, very little news — that’s how I’m going to spend the next four years.
So what’s it like to publish a book during Trumpocalypse 2.0? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.
Carla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, will be published by WildBlue Press on November 12, 2024.
