After The Debut

We writers spend years writing, years editing, years waiting for our diligent agents to find a publisher who wants these pieces of our souls, and when that book deal finally arrives, it is momentous. 

When the contract for my debut Girl in The Afternoon came in I was so elated

I was speechless. My husband and I took our kids out to dinner, a rare event, and then came home and popped a bottle of champagne. Turns out I didn’t waste ten years of writing after all. Now I was legit.  

Summer of 2016, social media surged on my publication day: Twitter notifications, Instagram mentions, Facebook posts. Flowers arrived at my door. I planned my book launch outfit, bought a new pair of heels, obsessively read the congratulatory texts pouring in. Launch night was full of people from every era in my life, family, friends from childhood through college, teachers from elementary and high school. In between hugs, each person told me, in their own way, what a spectacular thing I’d done. After the launch, I went on a book tour. Met new people, saw old friends, signed, signed, and signed some more. 

Two months later I was home checking my email to see if there was news from my agent, perhaps another review worth mentioning, one more push to keep up the momentum. I found myself wondering what now? What’s next? 

I contacted my publicist asking that very question. She kindly told me that there was no more. The media focus was now on 2017 publications. Her exact words, “I wish the window of opportunity were longer. But the media has such a short attention span, so to speak…they want timely, they want now.” 

It was as if I could hear the thud of my book dropping. There it was slipping off the shelves of Barnes & Noble, replaced, so quickly, by all those new books. Was my book old after two months? 

Our world is full of books, full of writers craving the very thing I’ve been given: to be published, to see their name on a shelf, to hold their bound, typeset book in their hands. I was blessed to have my book nestled next to John Gregory Brown’s, thanks to the alphabetical order of things, and yet, I hadn’t figured out how to keep it there. 

What I knew how to do was write, so I dove into my next novel, The Girls with No Names. I needed to revise expectations of numbers and promotions, and concentrate on building a career. As fleeting as the market is, I would have another book to give them, and it would have a chance to be the next new thing again.  

This time around my agent and I found a new publishing house, a new editor, new marketing and publicity team. It was a starting over, and a good one at that. 

January 2020, The Girls with No Names soared into the world and yes, I look at numbers and think about its lifespan, but meanwhile I’ve finished a draft of another novel and I am tucking away thoughts for the next, because what we writers will always have is the delight in all of our future possibilities: delight for the paperback that will do better than the hardcover, delight for each new reader, delight in our commitment to the next book, and the next. 

Perhaps the postpartum publishing blues are a gift in disguise: a chance to slow down, relish what we’ve accomplished and daydream for the length of a Snapchat about the anticipated high of another launch day for another book that will have its own shining moment in our lives. 

—
Serena Burdick is the author of the novels GIRL IN THE AFTERNOON (St. Martin’s Press, 2016) and THE GIRLS WITH NO NAMES, (Park Row Books 2020.) She is the 2017 International Book Award Winner for Historical Fiction. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence, holds a Bachelors of Arts from Brooklyn College in English literature and an Associates of Arts from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in theater. She lives in Massachusetts with her family.

THE GIRLS WITH NO NAMES

INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

A beautiful tale of hope, courage, and sisterhood—inspired by the real House of Mercy and the girls confined there for daring to break the rules.

Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone.

Effie suspects her father has sent Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s own escape seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on their tenuous friendship to survive.

Home for Unwanted Girls meets The Dollhouse in this atmospheric, heartwarming story that explores not only the historical House of Mercy, but the lives—and secrets—of the girls who stayed there.

“Burdick has spun a cautionary tale of struggle and survival, love and family — and above all, the strength of the heart, no matter how broken.” — New York Times Book Review

“Burdick reveals the perils of being a woman in 1913 and exposes the truths of their varying social circles.” — Chicago Tribune

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Category: On Writing