What am I doing to launch my latest book?

My painfully honest book launch. ALL SECRETS REVEALED

My book, We Need Your Art, will be out on the 11th of March.

Humble brag

I love the idea of being as transparent as possible about this book launch. They can seem very glamorous affairs. The tour, the promotion, the charts. As per, Amie fashion, let’s be painfully honest about every single aspect of it.

How are you feeling, Amie?

Okay, totally honestly - right in this exact moment - quite stressed. I’ve had a hard day where the magnitude of what I have been doing has really hit me. BUT, in general I am good. I am excited. It is just a lot. I feel so much. I am trying so hard.

My two main feelings are excited and scared…

Scared is the big one I think, I’m scared basically all the time. Not like, real shitting yourself fear. But just this intense vulnerability always. This feeling of trying. This feeling of giving a fuck. It’s intense. I am scared no one is going to come to my events. I am scared I’ve gone out a little bit too hard too early. I am scared because I am in instagram jail, and my posts aren’t being seen as much right now. I am scared I have approached this wrong. I am scared. But this is as it should be, I have dared to give a fuck. When one dares to give a fuck, one is always a little bit afraid.

I am not scared that I haven’t given it enough

I am so so proud of myself for the way I’ve been showing up. I don’t think I’ll ever wonder if I should’ve done more. I have given my whole heart to this book and championed it in a way I’m very proud of.

So how have you been showing up? What are you doing for your book launch?

Let’s talk podcasts:

When you start having marketing convos with the publishers they make you write out all the podcasts you want to try and be on.

So you write the crazy ones right? You write the big guns. Why not?

The podcast circuit is a substantial part of the book launch for big new non fiction books. And so initially, I became a little obsessed with it. I had the story that if I didn’t have the same podcasting circuit as Mel Robbins then We Need Your Art wasn’t going to do well. I TRIED to approach a lot of these dream podcasts. I’m assuming the publishers did too. Dm’s and emails, follow ups etc. But even the podcasters who follow me and consume my work went no where.

This was one of my big lessons I’ve learnt during this book launch. I don’t like asking to be witnessed. I like to take up space on my own terms. I like to put myself on stage. But I don’t like asking to use other people’s stages. It’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to do. And while I know vulnerability is a huge part of this journey, but asking to be platformed didn’t feel right. I stopped asking. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. But for me, in my body, it felt wrong. Like it was energetically icky.

I decided to go a new approach: Be brilliant, take up space on my own terms, wait for people to notice.

They’ll notice eventually…

And do you know what I’ve done that is actually so much better?

I will have recorded close to forty podcasts by the time this book comes out. Most of them are podcasts run by artists in this community. It fucking delights me. It feels grassroots, intimate, relational. I have spoken to the most incredible creatives and their communities. It has been life changingly beautiful. If you are someone who I got to chat to during this holy time of promoting my book, thank you. Truly, thank you.

Let’s talk social media:

James and I went on a walk one day, and he said: “Amie I think it’s time to fucking go.” I checked how many days it was until the book launch, and it happened to be 100 days exactly. I made myself the challenge 100 days straight of We Need Your Art promotion on socials. I have been SUCH A GOOD GIRL. I have missed maybe 3 days total. I have been repeating myself, posting links, talking about my book, sharing my blurbs.

Amie doing 100 days of promoting We Need Your Art

But more than just overtly promoting my books. I’ve been following my previous method of: being brilliant and waiting for people to notice. I’ve been CREATING! I’ve been writing substacks, playing with ideas, making youtube videos, writing! I think so many of us feel like a launch is when we stop creating and just market. But the more wonderful shit I share the more people are going to want to read my book. No matter how intense it gets: every day, I priorities my books, my ideas, my projects. And guess what… that’s fucking marketing baby.

Let’s talk about the Tour!

A tour seems so glamorous doesn’t it.

Let me preface this conversation.

I am paying for my entire tour. Publishers are not flying me anywhere, they are not paying for stays, they didn’t even ask me to go on tour. I just told them I was.

I’m not sure, but I think you have to be really fucking big to get funding from publishers on tour. We Need Your Art is a debut, I have a platform but it’s not -irrefutable- therefore, investing in a tour would be a risk to the publishers.

Also, theres the very valid question of: does a tour sell more books?

I think there’s a high chance that book tours dont’ sell more books. That I could sell more books behind my phone, on the couch. But I wrote this book for US, the creatives, artists, makers of the world and I want to go be with US as I launch it. I want to be in community, with creatives and so we have decided to make that happen.

I am going NYC, London, Sydney, Melbourne, Berlin and Amsterdam for the book tour. Details below. I so so so want to see you there.

Let’s talk about Events.

So on this lovely tour there will be lovely events.

This is where some of my ignorance about the publishing industry came into play. I was tripped up a little bit here.

We had a meeting in Jan with USA publishers, and I asked about how we go about organising bookshop events, maybe a little talk and singing. I was told that no one had asked for me to do a bookshop event. I didn’t realise bookstores invited you to do book events. I said, could we ask around? Could we work with Indie bookstores? I was warned that whilst I could try to approach them, I would likely get rejected. The UK and AUS also gave me warnings that book stores were a funny environment at the moment and they would most likely refuse my request for signings or events.

IN STEPS AGENT EXTRAORDINAIRE AMANDA BERNARDI.

My agent went ahead, worked her magic and got me three beautiful NYC / Brooklyn / Philly bookstore events. I am so grateful for the way she has fought for We Need Your Art. I am so fucking lucky to have her.

As for the other regions, we have managed to get it to work! Caroline from Ebury press has snagged a gorgeous London bookshop! And we have a few Australian options that are firming up.

What have the publishers done?

This has been a collaborative process!

Let me put together a little smorgasbord of what the publishers have been up to in terms of marketing this book. They have organised influencer boxes, cute little packages the include the book and some extra goodies to be sent out to those who might share it! The publishers have sent copies of my books out to podcasters so they have read the book before we chat! My USA angel Yuleza got me some great podcast opportunities and I’m guessing copped the brunt of a huge amount of rejection! The wonderful Caroline from Ebury press in the UK has nabbed me an interview on BBC London radio! Kaelee and Madison from Australia are putting up posters of my signs in Melbourne! I’ve also noticed that Penguin Australia are sponsoring ads on instagram for my book! I know the teams are there, behind the scenes backing my book baby, and backing me as an author and I am so grateful.

This is how I imagine Yuleza booking me podcasts

Things I have have still to do (14 days until pub)

I just copied and pasted my to do list into this substack but then deleted it because even you don’t want to see that mess.

Essentially it is this:

Stay in my fucking lane.

Keep having cool ideas and sharing them.

Keep reminding people about how fucking epic this book will be.

Keep reminding people about the tour!!

Take profound care of my body, which is the vessel in which I do all this cool stuff in.

Be fucking amazing, wait for people to notice.

THE TOUR!

It would be the greatest honour to get to meet you, sign your book, write you your own personalized inspiredtowrite love note. Hug you. Hear about your art. Bask in your creative magic.

USA EAST COAST

The BookMark Shoppe Brooklyn 11th March 2025 7pm - BUY TICKETS HERE

Head House Books, Philly, 13th March 2025 6:30pm - BUY TICKETS HERE

Taylor Co Books, Brooklyn, 14th March 2025 7:30pm - BUY TICKETS HERE (just scroll down the home page!)

UNITED KINGDOM

Morocco Bound Bookshop", 25th March - BUY TICKETS HERE

AMSTERDAM

Scheltema, 5th April, 2pm - BUY TICKETS HERE!

BERLIN, SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE!

I am going to be all up and about your business. Please stay tuned.

THE BOOK!

You can pre-order her HERE