In this time of Covid-19, authors can’t help wondering what will happen to our new releases. Book tours have been cancelled. Bookstores have closed. Some Tall Poppies with new releases are affected and it’s hard. It’s hard because we’ve spent months (if not years) in self-imposed solitary confinement wrestling with words and plots and characters that refuse to cooperate. When our books finally get out into the world, we want to celebrate. We’re anxious but also excited. So excited. We get to meet readers. Introduce them to our new book babies.
But nope. Not this season.
Yet Tall Poppies feel fortunate compared to debut authors. Take all the anxiety we feel when our new books come out and multiply that by a hundred for first-time authors. When their first novel comes out, a debut author doesn’t have a readership yet. No one knows them. They’re basically jumping up and down in a crowd, arms waving, shouting “Take a chance on me!”
And now, all this.
With your help, dear readers, the Tall Poppies are going to give some debut authors a little boost. We call them our Tall Poppy Buds (get it? Our young buddies? Flower buds?). Every so often we will post about a debut author and novel on Bloom, our 9,000-plus-strong Facebook group for readers. We will include links so that you can add their books to your TBR list, check out their website, maybe even buy the book. We hope you’ll take the time to read about our ‘Buds’ and support them. Who knows – you may be one of the first to discover a future bestselling author!
Thank you so much. And if you are not yet a member of Bloom, click here to join.
PS: We love how our writing and publishing community has come together to try and give new releases a boost during this tough time. We encourage you to join one of our partners on Facebook: A Mighty Blaze. They’re putting on virtual events and promoting new books by authors whose book events and tours have been cancelled due to the pandemic, as well as raising up independent bookstores. Please go over and check them out.
