Keep the glow-up

After your book launches and the big publicity wave dies down, how do you keep it happily alive when the spotlight moves on?

by Dietrich

You did it! Your new release made its grand entrance. The launch party was a blast, the champagne flutes are cleared away, and just like that…

Crickets.

Welcome to the afterparty—that phase after you’ve sat there grinning, waiting for the chirp to be replaced by the roar of soaring sales. It’s when your book steps out without a full entourage of publicists holding up its train, and you accept that the spotlight has wandered over to someone else’s shiny new release.

And you know what? That’s okay.

Sure, you’d love to keep the buzz going, but deep down, you knew the fireworks were never meant to last. At this point, you settle in, roll up your sleeves and get to work. You post fresh content on your website and socials — glowing reviews, behind-the-scenes rabbit holes from your research, deleted scenes that still have some life in them, and silly extras like “If My Book Were a Cocktail” (because readers oddly love that kinda stuff). Every new post is another little spark, another reason for readers and algorithms to rediscover your book.

You know happy accidents only happen when you stay in the game. So, you rack your brain for promo ideas because you know your book has legs, and you’re determined to help it along. You’ll gladly send copies to book clubs, jump on Zoom calls as a guest author, say yes to podcasts, and cheerfully haunt local bookstores for signings. You team up with fellow authors, join panels, and pray that your book gets passed around like the literary hot potato it deserves to be.

And when you’ve done all you can, you get to do the best thing of all: sit at your desk and start writing the next book. Because nothing breathes fresh life into your backlist like a new frontlist title. Readers who loved your last book will suddenly remember you, and your older stories get to come out and play again.

You picture someone handing their well-loved copy of your debut to a friend, saying, “You’ve got to read this.”

And one day soon… you’ll do it all over again. New book. New launch party. Champagne flowing. Publicity wave cresting…

And yes — probably more crickets.

But you’re in the game, and you love it because nothing beats it.

Part coming-of-age story and part family drama, set against the harsh backdrop of World War II Ukraine and Germany.

In the winter of 1945, a German village deep inside Ukraine burns under Russian assault. Young Jakob Fritsch, torn from his family, is forced onto a cattle car bound for a work camp where death looms. When a Stuka’s bomb derails the train, Jakob escapes the smoking wreckage alongside two untrustworthy survivors. They forge through snow-laden wilderness, hunted by soldiers and partisans.

A tragic turn forces Jakob to go on alone. Starving and freezing, he braves the perilous countryside of Poland en route to Berlin — the only place he can go — which is being torn apart from all sides.

Far away in the shattered outskirts of Berlin, Frida Beckmann lives amid relentless bombing raids and encroaching Soviet forces. With her father in a prison camp and her mother broken by grief, Frida shoulders the weight of her family’s survival. Tested by hardship, betrayal, and loss, she is pushed well beyond her years.

Jakob and Frida navigate their war-torn paths, struggling to survive in a time stripped of mercy — seeking refuge when all the world’s gone mad.