a literary festival, film stuff & cover reveal
Hi friends—
Check out the new header that my publishing team put together for me. Pretty spiffy, huh?
September has been a busy month of book news, particularly in the UK. First off, there was the super exciting cover reveal!
I love the way the title interacts with the image. The sterile, medical feel of the cover is reminiscent of Rose Gold's childhood spent in hospitals. And the lock of hair woven through the scissors is the perfect touch of creepiness. [Side note: I found out that in Australia, they've been sending proofs of the book out with a lock of hair! 💀] The two covers—UK and US—could not be more different, and I love seeing the range of visual interpretations of this story. I'm looking forward to seeing all the foreign covers too, whenever they're ready.
Stylist did the UK cover reveal and published an excerpt of the book, calling it "2020's biggest thriller", which made me want to puke rainbows of joy. You can read the first TWO chapters here, if you want to hear from both Patty (chapter 1) and Rose Gold (chapter 2).
This month I went to a handful of events to begin getting the word out about the book: the Booksellers Association dinner in Birmingham, the Michael Joseph (my publisher) 2020 showcase in London, and the Henley Literary Festival earlier today. The point of all of these events is to meet booksellers—ranging from buyers for big shops like Tesco and Waterstones, to independent store owners—as well as journalists and readers. You answer the same questions over and over (what's the book about? where did you get your inspiration? are you writing book 2 yet?), which can be tedious but is also really useful for honing your pitch. Practice makes perfect, as they say. 💪 One of the best parts of these events is meeting authors who I've admired for years. The other best part is the free books, duh.
I also did some filming at the Penguin Random House office this month. A lot of it was your basic "Hi [Retailer Name]! I'm Stephanie Wrobel, and my debut novel, The Recovery of Rose Gold, is coming out next March." But we also did some fun Q&A, and I read five or six pages of Chapter 3 of the book, which I'm told will go up on YouTube at some point. It's so cool to watch my publishing teams at work—as readers, we have no idea how much work goes into bringing a book to shelves, but I can now tell you firsthand that it's a LOT.
Another important part of launching a book is getting other authors to write blurbs for you. Blurbs are the glowing quotes you see on the covers/backs of books. Since I'm a debut author, these blurbs are especially important. My teams have been brilliant at getting quotes from other suspense authors—I think we're up to twelve now!—and I thought I'd share a couple snippets with you below.
Finally, my book recommendation this month is Normal People by Sally Rooney. Sometimes I get nervous before reading super-hyped books because I often feel unfairly disappointed afterward, but this book both met and exceeded my expectations. A quarter of the way through, I began consciously slowing my reading pace because I never wanted it to end. This is a book about two people in high school, then college, but I would’ve followed their story through old age if given the chance.
Normal People is not a jam-packed plot with lots of big developments or twists, but Sally Rooney’s insights into humans and our tiniest of motivations are sharper than most anyone I’ve read. The more confident or extroverted among us may find these characters exasperating, but my fellow anxious over-thinkers will find themselves in these pages. Rooney taught me things I knew but couldn’t verbalize about humanity. This book is an extraordinary work of art.
I'm going to try to spend as much of October as possible in my writing cave, chipping away at revisions on book 2. Later in the month, I have a pre-publicity tour in the US/Canada (Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Toronto) that should be a whirlwind of fun. Stay tuned! And if there's anything you want me to cover, let me know. I love to hear from you guys. 🙃
As always, here are the US retailers where you can pre-order my book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million | Apple Books
IndieBound | Kobo | Google Play
And UK retailers: Amazon | Waterstones | iTunes | Kobo
6 months until publication!