Dear Twitter Friends (and anyone else on the internet who might come across this),

Believe it or not I thought long and hard about the title to this post. This is what I came up with- it’s not very clever or creative, but it pretty much sums things up.

By now, most of you know that I wrote a book. (Plug alert: Titanic: The Tennis Story out on April 1st!). It’s been a very rapid, very stressful and very exciting process to get to this point where I can use the word “wrote”. I am not “writing”. I am not “researching”. I am not “editing”. I wrote a book. In a few days (maybe less), I will have copies of that book in my hand. In 39 days (not that I’m counting…) other people will have copies of that book in their hands. It is, in a nutshell, bizarre.

I could bore you all about stories about the writing process- the procrastination, the self doubt, the 36 hour writing binges- but I will spare you (though if you’re interested, I will tell, my roommate could use the break).  But the point of this blog post is to say thank you, dear twitter friends.  I have wanted to spill the beans about this for almost a year now.  I cannot tell you how excited/nervous/anxious I was to share this news with you, and when I finally tweeted about it a few weeks ago, the messages of love and support I received from you all was overwhelming. I even cried a little, which is very, very rare for me.

Believe it or not, you guys have helped me a lot throughout this process. There were many days while writing this book that I did not leave my house- sometimes there were many weeks. You guys kept me company, kept me laughing, and kept me just distracted enough to remain (somewhat) sane. You’ve become my friends and confidants on many issues, and I really do consider us all one big twitter family- dysfunction included. 

I want to promise you all that I will not turn my twitter feed into a 24/7 Book Spam Promotional Line.  Self-promotions make me extremely uncomfortable anyways, and it’s not why I started this twitter feed. I started tweeting and tumblring (is that the correct term?) to talk/frazzle about tennis and other sports, to meet (awesome) new people, and to have fun. Not to promote a blog or a book or my writing.

That being said, I will be tweeting about it, probably a bit more often than I’m comfortable with.  Part of the reason is because you guys are my friends, I’m incredibly excited about this, and I want to share it with you. But yes- part of it is also because I’m a broke writer who’s being published for the first time and I want people to buy my book so that I’m not quite so broke anymore and so that I can hopefully write more books. That’s just the truth.

A lot of you guys have very nicely asked how you could help promote the book.  Since I do consider you guys my friends and twitter-family, I have decided after some thought to reach out to you all the same way I have reached out to my closest friends and family. So, awkwardness aside, if you want to help out me and Titanic: The Tennis Story, here are a few things you can do:

1) Spread the word.  Tweet about it. RT my annoying tweets about it. E-mail the Amazon link to your nearest and dearest friends. Facebook about it (there’s even a facebook page!). I’m an unknown writer- every little bit helps.

2) Buy it…on Amazon on Monday, April 2nd at 12PM EST. Okay, this one is a bit complicated because I actually want you to buy it whenever you get a chance (if you want to, of course). But here’s the thing- the Amazon ranking is really, really important.  It not only takes into account how many people have bought the book, but it takes into account when people have bought it. So, if a lot of people buy the book on Amazon at around the same time, the ranking will be much higher than if the same amount of people buy the book over a long period of time. If you’ve already pre-ordered it? Thank you so much. Pre-orders are amazing, and we need them. If you won’t be around your computer that Monday or are afraid you’ll forget? That’s fine. Buy it now. (And again, thank you.) But there will be a movement to get as many of my friends and family as possible to buy the book on Amazon on April 2nd around noon EST. If you feel so inclined, I’d love to have you be a part of that.

3) Request it at your local book-store.  Once again, as I am an unknown author and there is no giant publicity machine behind me, all book-stores will not automatically be carrying the book.  However, if you go (or just call!) and request a copy, they will order it. And they probably won’t just order one- they’ll order a few, that will then sit on the bookshelves for other people to hopefully stumble upon! Yay!

4) Be My Publicist. Just kidding. But, I am (rather shamelessly) looking for any publicity I can get. This novel tells a great, true story about two Hall of Fame tennis players who survived the Titanic. It’s a fascinating link between the sport we love and history. Plus I’m really, really proud of it. If you know of anyone- local sportswriters, TV producers, tennis bloggers- who you think I should reach out to for possible publicity, I would sincerely appreciate it. We’re already getting great feedback and interest from the tennis community and media, and we are hoping to keep it going.

____

Okay, that’s all. I promise. If you’ve made it to the end of this post you deserve a medal. Thank you for reading. Thank you for supporting in any way at all.  Just thank you- for being there, for being awesome, and for being you.  This is an incredibly nerve-wracking, exhilarating, unknown, and pretty amazing time in my life. Thank you for sharing it with me. It means more to me than you know.

Love (and, if you didn’t get it already, thanks),

Lindsay