Miranda Levi

There is a very specific kind of irony in being an author in the modern age.

You spend months, sometimes years, writing a book. Bleeding onto the page. Obsessing over plot holes. Rewriting scenes at midnight. Falling in love with fictional people. Screaming into the void over chapter endings. Pouring your whole weird little heart into something you hope will matter to someone else.

And then, when the book is finally ready, the universe looks you dead in the face and says, “Great. Now go make twelve reels about it.”

This is cruel to me personally.

Because while I love writing books, I do not love most forms of social media. The fact that you are still reading this blog instead of watching me point at floating text in a video probably tells you everything you need to know about how I feel about the internet as a whole.

Honestly, half the time it feels like a joke we all agreed to participate in without reading the fine print.

And yet.

Here I am.

Launching books anyway.

Because as much as I would love to live in a moss-covered tower and simply release a novel into the world by candlelight and psychic vibration, that is unfortunately not how publishing works. Especially not when you care deeply about your stories and want them to actually reach readers.

That means launching a book is not just writing it.

It is also building the bridge between the story and the people who might love it.

And that bridge, it turns out, takes a lot of work.

There’s the practical side, of course. Covers. Blurbs. Edits. Formatting. Uploading. Metadata. Keywords. Release timing. ARC outreach. Graphics. Newsletters. Website updates. Social posts. Promotional planning. Making graphics in dimensions designed specifically to humble you. Wondering why one platform wants this size and another wants that size and whether any of us are truly free.

There’s also the emotional side.

That part is harder to talk about, but it might be the real work.

Because launching a book means being visible.

It means saying, Here. I made this. Please look at it. It means talking about your work over and over without sounding like you’re begging people to care. It means finding ways to stay sincere while marketing something deeply personal. It means balancing your love for the art with the very real need to tell people the art exists.

That can feel vulnerable even when you believe in the book.

Maybe especially when you believe in the book.

And I do believe in this one.

I am deep in the launch of my newest book, the one I am absolutely in love with, while also writing the next one — a dark mashup of Peter Pan and Bluebeard called The House of Wendys, which already owns a suspicious amount of real estate in my brain.

That’s another strange part of being an author.

You are often trying to launch one book while being haunted by the next.

So while part of me is over here making sure my first romance novel has everything it needs to enter the world well, another part of me is already wandering the corridors of a sinister house full of Wendys, muttering to myself about rot, longing, teeth, and fairy-tale horror like that is a normal way to spend a Tuesday.

This is my life.
I have accepted it.

The truth is, I want to get this right.

Not because there is one magical perfect launch formula hidden somewhere in the basement of the internet, guarded by influencers and ring lights. But because I love this work. I love books. I love story. I love the strange alchemy of taking something imagined and making it real enough for someone else to feel.

And if I love it that much, then I want to give it a real chance.

That means showing up, even in ways that do not come naturally to me.

It means writing blog posts even when the algorithm would probably prefer I lip-sync to trending audio while holding up my paperback like a hostage negotiation. It means sending newsletters and posting more than I instinctively want to. And talking about the book from different angles until I find the language that feels honest. But most of all, it means remembering that marketing is not inherently gross when it comes from genuine enthusiasm.

That last part has been important for me.

Because I think a lot of creatives, especially those of us who are a little allergic to internet performance, struggle with the idea of promotion. We do not want to be annoying. We do not want to be salesy. We do not want to become a brand in the emptiest possible sense of that word.

We want to make beautiful things. To tell stories and connect. And yet, in order to connect, people have to know the book exists.

So I have been trying to reframe it.

Instead of thinking:
Ugh, I have to market.

I’ve been trying to think:
I get to invite people in. (<–Yeah, I’m still working on the phrasing of that one)

I get to tell readers what kind of story is waiting for them and share what I love about it. I attempt to build curiosity. And hopefully through it all, I get to let the right readers find the right book.

That feels a bit different.

Somehow kinder. Or more human. Less like selling. More like opening a door.

Still exhausting sometimes, yes. Still mildly absurd, absolutely. Still not enough to make me love making videos, not even a little.

But it’s different.

I think that is the real challenge of launching a book when you do not naturally thrive online. It is not becoming someone else. It is finding a way to participate without betraying your actual voice.

For me, that voice will probably always live best in writing.

In blogs like this. In the occasional newsletters. In captions that sound like me. In strange, earnest, funny little invitations to come see what I made.

Maybe that is enough.

Maybe that is the way I do this.

Not necessarily louder. Just truer. More vulnerable.

So yes, there is a lot of work that goes into launching a book.

More than most people see. Way more than most readers probably realize. And definitely more than my grumpy little goblin soul would choose if left alone in the woods.

But the work matters. Because books matter. And telling stories matters.

Because if I am asking readers to spend their time with something I created, the least I can do is show up for it too.

Even if I do so while side-eyeing the internet the entire time.

And if nothing else, at least there is this…while I’m over here trying to launch one beloved book into the world, I also get to keep writing The House of Wendys, which is dark and strange and deliciously wrong in all the ways I like best.

So maybe that is the balance.

One hand on the launch. One hand on the next haunted thing. A deep breath. A reluctant social post. A stubborn belief that the stories are worth it.

They are.

Even if the reels kill me.