13 Authors Share Insights from Their Debut Year

I’ve had four months to soak everything in since publication, and if I had the ability to do it over again, I wouldn’t change anything. The surprises along the way have been the best part—meeting other incredible authors, getting to go on a national tour, having the book optioned for a movie—all of it has been more than I could have dreamed to ask for three years ago. Not that everything has been perfect! There are the bad reviews, and the anxiety of spending most of your time (as a writer) in isolation, wondering if you’re doing this whole writing thing right. I think the only thing I would tell myself four months ago is to remember to be grateful every day and to never forget who I’m writing for, because all of this is actually about them. We write to speak to people deeply, to move and change them, and tell them they’re not alone. And if you can remember that, all the other ego-related stuff just stops mattering so much.
–Natalie C. Anderson, author of City of Saints and Thieves

The hardest part was managing my time and finding a rhythm, which I’m still trying to figure out. I feel so much pressure to maximize every second of every day—hello, deadlines!—and I actively have to tell myself to relax those expectations. Sometimes you’ll have a productive block of writing time when you’re proud of the work you did, and sometimes all you have are 1,000 words erased and rewritten and erased all over again. So, a blank page. For me, it was accepting that that was part of the process.
–Rhoda Belleza, author of Empress of a Thousand Skies

An insight I gleaned from my debut year is that there are a million different ways to stress out and a million different things to stress out about. BUT choosing not to stress out and to just enjoy the ride is also an option! There were times when I felt I’d never catch up with email or direct messages or a myriad of other things, but then I’d take a breath and remind myself these were all great problems to have. I’ve learned to accept that I simply cannot be on top of everything all the time—and that Google calendar is my best technological friend. I cut myself more slack now and find that I’m able to relax and enjoy each milestone so much better!
–Sandhya Menon, author of When Dimple Met Rishi

Being a debut is tremendously difficult. There are no rulebooks, no concrete lists of dos and don’ts, so it’s easy to worry—which I did a lot of. But then I found that when I thought about others there wasn’t room to worry about myself. I don’t think it’s possible to be too kind, or too generous, or too thoughtful. And if I could go back in time I would tell myself to give more, and love more, and find more ways to think about others.
–Stephanie Garber, author of Caraval

Don’t read YA while you’re writing YA. If you can’t help yourself, at least don’t read the same genre that you’re working on. I mean, come on, you’re insecure enough already! There are so many amazing YA novelists out there. Their imaginations are like those chocolate fountains you see at bar mitzvahs. You are not a chocolate fountain! You are, at best, a handful of Hershey’s Kisses. If you read the fountain people while you’re working on a draft, you’ll compare yourself to them, and it will hurt your confidence and your momentum. So read poetry or a thriller or a book about the human nose. When you’re done with your draft, you can gorge on YA. But first make some chocolate of your own.
–Jeff Giles, author of The Edge of Everything

I think the most surprising thing about my debut year is the political climate in which this book enters the world. I always knew that I wanted to be able to use this novel as a vehicle to open up conversations about abortion and reproductive rights, but I never imagined what kind of attacks our affordable and safe healthcare for women (and everyone!) would be under alongside this book’s release. It is still my hope that Aftercare Instructions normalizes difficult conversations, and ultimately contributes to empowering young women to make choices that are right for their bodies. Let’s just hope there are safe and affordable places for everyone to continue to make these choices!
–Bonnie Pipkin, author of Aftercare Instructions

I expected lots of anxiety as my book came out into the world (offering my heart up to strangers is pretty much my worst nightmare), but I wasn’t prepared for the joy that would come with it. I’d been so focused on the industry side of things—reviews, social media, the sheer number of great books debuting this year—that I’d failed to realize how excited actual humans would be about my book. Friends I hadn’t seen in years sent messages and showed up to the launch, and my big, beautiful family practically lost their minds when they finally saw my/our name on a book. There have been strangers, too, who’ve reached out to tell me how the story touched them. I feel almost silly for how surprising this has been. I mean, that’s why people write books, isn’t it? For other people to enjoy? I guess I didn’t realize how good that part would feel…
–Katie Bayerl, author of A Psalm for Lost Girls

I’d spent years (and years!) looking forward to my launch party, but on the day, it turned out to be pretty…stressful. It started with torrential downpours, soaking my outfit, my painstakingly curled hair—meant to look effortless, of course—and my suitcase full of all the decorations I’d crafted over weeks and weeks. At the event itself, I was so nervous, I could barely taste my food, and I kept forgetting to drink water, giving me a strange, “unexplained” headache. My cheeks hurt from smiling, my heart thudded as I gave my speech, and my brain was spinning so fast, I could barely keep up with what I was saying or even who I was talking to. But when the night ended, and I lay in bed scarfing all the cupcakes I’d been too anxious to eat only a few hours before, I realized what a success it had truly been. And how lucky I was to have so many people willing to come out—in some cases, even travel continents!—just to celebrate this moment with me. The adrenaline and the sugar wore away eventually, but I wish I’d known to take that night one breath at a time, to drink a lot of water, and to know that, although there’s a lot of about the publishing process I can’t control, that night was mine to enjoy. And the memories of it are mine to keep still.
–Cecilia Vinesse, author of Seven Days of You

The true joy of my debut year has been the incredible support of the YA writing (and reading) community. I lost my husband to cancer a few months before my book was published, and any celebration of my long-awaited book release might have been swallowed up by sorrow had it not been for the enthusiasm, care, and encouragement of my fellow writers and readers. Before I went through the publishing process, I thought of novel-writing as a primarily solitary pursuit. How very wrong I was! From the creative partnership I found with my agent, editor, and publishers, to the love and fellowship offered by the YA community, my debut year has been a total group effort.
–Danielle Mages Amato, author of The Hidden Memory of Objects

It’s been roughly two months since my young adult book The Education of Margot Sanchez was released. There are have been so many beautiful moments tied to my book, but having my launch party in the Bronx, New York, where I grew up and where the book is set, was by the far the highlight. The Bronx is the home of more than 1.5 million residents, but there are no bookstores. Finding the right space became quite the challenge. We eventually found DreamYard, a nonprofit organization right in the heart of the Bronx. Noelle Santos of The Lit. Bar became our exclusive bookseller. (Noelle is trying to open a bookstore!) Not only did my family come out to celebrate, but the audience was filled with young people who attend DreamYard. Simon & Schuster donated books to them, and seeing these young people holding a copy of Margot Sanchez made that day truly special. It was the best welcome home gift ever.
–Lilliam Rivera, author of The Education of Margot Sanchez

Don’t laugh, but before my book came out, I kind of thought EVERYONE, every single reader, from Joe Goodreads to the anonymous writers at Kirkus, would love it. This despite the fact that my protagonist is very flawed (in an endearing way!) and deeply narcissistic (but aren’t we all at age 14?). And I have gotten many glowing reviews, but I’ve also gotten some ice-cold single stars. And they hurt! Especially in the beginning. The first time someone calls your book the biggest disappointment of 2017, or whatever, it brings on flu-like symptoms. Your skin gets clammy, your vision falters, you think you might actually vomit. But in a few days, you recover, and the next time you come across a “HATED IT!,” it hurts less, and eventually it doesn’t hurt at all—because you’ve taken the advice of everyone in your debut group on Facebook and stopped reading your own reviews. Other stuff that helps: 1) Seeking out pans of your favorite novels (not everyone appreciates Middlemarch! No one book will please every reader). 2) Reminding yourself that you, too, hate plenty of books, including books you’re “supposed” to love, and what kind of hypocrite would you be if you can’t take what you dish out? 3) Coming to understand that bad reviews truly aren’t an attack on you. Readers have a personal relationship with books that doesn’t involve you. Their response to your work is none of your business. You can’t follow your novel around the world, explaining what it meant to say and protecting it from bullies, or even just silently fretting about it from the sidelines. You have to let it go and hope for the best. (And you HAVE to stay off Goodreads.)
–Emma Chastain, author of Confessions of a High School Disaster

Something that has brought me so much joy since the release of American Street is strangers coming up to me to let me know what specifically they liked about the book. And I have to admit, most of these readers are not who I’d imagined reading and loving my book. Another moment is when a teacher introduced me to one of her students who was the only Haitian American teen in her small Virginia town. American Street is reaching all kinds of readers and they’re each making personal connections to the story and characters in very surprising ways, and I’m so grateful for that.
–Ibi Zoboi, author of American Street

I wish I’d known that getting published is not busy-busy-busy all the time. For me it’s been periods of intense work punctuated by long weeks of silence. I found it hard to focus due to being super excited about things in the far future (cover! debut day! first reviews!). But I should’ve been using every moment of down time to get ahead. Time management is so key.
–Sarah Tolcser, author of Song of the Current