Three more days to get this Substack FREE FOREVER when you order The Sicilian Inheritance. We will have yet another installment of the #TradWife murder mystery EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU today or tomorrow AND we are going to keep adding to our thread where you can literally ask me ANYTHING about the publishing and writing process and I will answer with no filter. So get your orders in. It’s an amazing book and SO MANY OF YOU ARE TELLING ME YOU ARE LOVING IT!!!
Signing books at Midtown Scholar until late last night…..Do I look sleepy?
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what success looks like and means for me. All of you know that my first goal for The Sicilian Inheritance was to hit the New York Times bestseller list. And that didn’t happen. We have great first week sales, more than 5,500 copies have been sold. In the world of books that is A LOT. And if any of you ever have questions about book sales numbers and what they mean feel free to ask me. I am an open book.
If all of the folks who bought the book convinced one more person to grab a copy this week we will double our sales! Let’s fucking do it this week!
Before The Sicilian Inheritance even came out my coauthor on my other books Christine Pride told me I can’t measure success based on the NYT List. Not only does the list measure book sales with an algorithm no one understands, but I was also coming out in a week filled with massive heavy hitters like Don Winslow and James Patterson, Lisa Scottoline and Amor Towles and we didn’t have a celeb book club behind us (I have a lot more to say about those coming up in a paid subscriber post).
So I did try to recalibrate my idea of success before this launch. I wanted a good review in the NYT (I’ve never had one…only a kindof crappy one on a different ). AND WE GOT IT. And we got mentioned in a second NYT article about the top books of April and the Washington Post. If I were going to measure success of this book by the buzz and the press then I think I should feel awesome. So I have been thinking about that.
I also want to measure it in the joy it has brought people. Because all of your messages this week about how you devoured it in one night have been fucking amazing and I love them.
And I want to talk about one more measure of success that I think we are uncomfortable talking about as women. I want this book to make money. I want this book to succeed so that I can sell my next book for a good amount of money. I want to be able to make enough money at book writing that it is a career and not just a hobby.
But I know we aren’t supposed to say that or talk about it in those terms. I think as women we do a lot to hide the fact that we want to make money to be successful. I see this in the fact that #tradwives literally pretend to be financially dependent on their husbands when they are making bank as content creators.
So let’s dig into why women don’t always want to talk about the desire to make money. AND NOTICE I SAID MAKE MONEY. Women often seem more comfortable talking about wealthy and having wealth when it is earned by their husbands.
In a world where discussions about empowerment, equality, and self-worth thrive, why does the topic of women and money often evoke discomfort, hushed tones, and sideward glances?
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