THE AWESOME GIRL'S GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN Pub Day or How a second book is like a second child

I'm really happy to announce the release of my second work of fiction: THE AWESOME GIRL'S GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN. Just so happy and excited...

Aw, who am I kidding. The fact is that there's just no way to yourself as worked up about your second book as you did about your first.

For 32 CANDLES, I blogged and tweeted and facebooked for months beforehand. I sent out postcards, crafted long emails to my entire group of friends.

I've dropped a few posts about AWESOME. Not a lot. Just like I let a solitary Facebook status update suffice for the birth of my twins after posting relentlessly, sending out paper announcements, and (no, I'm not kidding) live-blogging the birth of my oldest daughter.

My husband and I shelf-elfed 32 CANDLES at a nearby bookstore before going out to a celebratory dinner on my first pub day.

Today, my husband will be spending much of his night with Justin Timberlake. I think my MIL might be heating up some leftovers. I'm not sure.

32 CANDLES came out on my daughter's birthday.
So we celebrated both!

Just like I'm not sure whether I'll bother with a one-year-old birthday party for the twins, even though we didn't even hesitate to invite just about every parent we knew to my oldest daughter's first birthday celebration. Back then it was important to honor this super special milestone--now I'm like "Enh, kids turn one all the freak time. Let's just take a picture of the twins smashing a cake and tell them they had a huge one-year birthday bash like their older sister." I mean kids aren't that swift; they'll definitely believe me (until they read this blog).

It's not that I don't love my second book, or my twin daughters equally. It's just that I'm older now--also savvier.

Just like I now know that you don't need to blog, tweet, send announcements about, obsess over, and gorgeously fete your kids for them to turn out (hopefully) halfway decent, I also know that despite what publishers would have us believe, it's not the writer that sales the book, but the book that sales the book, and I've already written the book, so...

At the end of the day, just like I know that the best gift I can give any of my children is my time and undivided attention, I also know that the best way I can honor this book is by writing another one. Quickly. This time instead of worrying that I'm not connecting with enough fans, I'll worry more about not keeping them waiting.

So I'm going to spend the rest of the day working on my third book--right after I run out to pick up a bottle of champagne to enjoy with my husband when he gets home tonight. Yeah, it's a my second book, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a bit of a celebration. We'll dress up and take pictures and tell it later that we totally had a book launch party for it, just like we did for 32 CANDLES. I mean, books aren't that swift; it'll totally believe me (until it reads this blog).


Ernessa T. Carter's latest book, THE AWESOME GIRL'S GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN is here and available for download and physical purchase at Amazon.com.