Friday miscellany: Prepping for a rainy weekend, plus books

I have been looking through the photos of Florida a lot these past few days. Charity Navigator put together a list of highly rated non-profits that are specifically working in Hurricane Ian relief. Those are worth checking out. The recovery process is going to be long, as I’ve even seen on a much smaller scale around here (a bridge near my house was damaged in the hurricane that came through last September and it is still not repaired, partly because so many other roads needed to be repaired too — there are only so many workers to go around).

As the remnants of the storm move inland and north it will likely be a rainy weekend for much of the northeast. Our fall weekends often feature a lot of outdoor sports. So if the weather is nice, we are booked solid. But then if it rains, we are not, but can’t necessarily pivot to do the autumn hikes or bike rides I might choose on a fair-weather fall weekend. So we may wind up at the aquarium. We shall see. The two kid sports I’m covering on Saturday (an indoor swim lesson and an indoor ice skating lesson) will still happen.

I was a guest on Christine Koh’s Edit Your Life podcast this week. I know there is quite a bit of cross-over interest between Best of Both Worlds and her podcast (podcast apps often suggest them together) so if you haven’t listened to her before, please check her out! It was a fun episode.

I managed to get four of five kids’ hair cuts this week. The boys did a quick Hair Cuttery experience. I took my daughter to the salon where I usually go (and I scheduled our haircuts back to back). She quite enjoyed the shampooing and blow-drying involved. This morning she remarked with great excitement that her hair was still soft! She is turning 11 this upcoming week which is also exciting. Then we are out of the birthday crunch for a while (until the winter round of them…)

I am in the final push of getting stuff ready for Tranquility by Tuesday’s launch on October 11th. It is really strange to think that this project I have been incubating for about three years is finally going to be out in the world. But then it will be October 12th and time keeps passing. So I’m trying to enjoy it.

If you haven’t already pre-ordered a copy, would you please do so? American readers can use the retailer links on the book page on my site. Readers anywhere can pre-order and then come back and fill out the form on this page (it’s the same page, you just have to scroll down) with your name and email to get some pre-order bonuses: an excerpt so you can start reading, a TBT scorecard, early access to all the TBT In Real Life videos, and there will be a “pre-order only” virtual gathering on October 18th to chat about the book.

You might be wondering why it matters. Here’s the reality: Most books don’t sell that many copies. We are talking in the thousands, not millions. Individual orders are significant! High numbers of pre-orders influence how many copies retailers order and how many copies my publisher prints. They will help make the book a success, and I would really like to get this book to as big an audience as possible! If everyone who reads my blog regularly or listens to my podcasts bought the book it would be a run-away bestseller. So hopefully at least a few folks will do so! Thanks so much for your support.

20 thoughts on “Friday miscellany: Prepping for a rainy weekend, plus books

  1. Happy to have helped by pre-ordering.

    From what I have read in your posts and by reading the first chapter you provided I predict that I will agree with your husband that this is your best book. I appreciated the pre-order gifts so far.

    I am doing my planning today on Friday as you recommended. I have done this for several weeks now and I am liking the results.

    Have a great weekend!

    Barbara

    1. @Barbara – thank you! I hope lots of people agree with my husband on this one…Better to be getting better than going the other direction, right?

  2. I pre-ordered one as well! I don’t live in America so I don’t think it will matter a lot but at least I know I can read it pretty soon! Very excited you have a new book out soon.

    1. @E – thanks and so glad you liked the videos! I liked making them so hopefully that comes across 🙂

  3. Hi Laura, I’m so excited for your book. Only a silly question that I’m sure is ‘insider publishing’ but how to publishers decide whether to print in hardback or paperback? I tend to buy paperbacks but this one is hardback only. Thank you!

    1. @Rachel – in the old days you started with the more expensive hard cover to capture people who really wanted the book at the higher price point. Then paperback came later to give people a cheaper version of it (especially if there was a revealed market for the book – it’s cheaper to print higher volumes of paperbacks). Nowadays plenty of books are published as paperbacks first (a lot of fiction, for instance). And there’s already a cheaper version of most books in the form of an ebook. So people don’t have to wait around for the paperback. So I think a lot of it’s just based on tradition. My publisher is mostly a business publisher and they’ve historically printed the first edition as a hard cover…

      1. Thank you! I hadn’t realized that the ebook was basically capturing those wanting to spend less. I appreciate the information and hope that the Libraries I’ve contacted will get me a copy 🙂

  4. I pre-ordered! Can’t wait for this to launch and to have a physical copy in my hands! So excited for you, Laura, and I agree with Michael that this is your best book to date (all the others are awesome, too, but this one is extra special and I hope it reaches a very wide audience – we all want to be better stewards of our hours).

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