Our pub date is officially the 14th but the paperback has been up on Amazon for a few weeks and the ebook went live in the Kindle store last week. On Monday, after all kinds of chaos caused by one possibly inexperienced and/or incompetent UPS driver, the hardcover was also approved and enabled for distribution. So…are we close to crossing the finish line? Hardly.

After all the hard work that goes into self-publishing a book, I now face the daunting task of promoting the prequel. On Sunday I participated in a wonderful community event organized by Three Avenues Bookshop. Kids recognized the series and were excited about the prequel; the booksellers kindly offered to notify the five winners of the raffle. I gave away 25 copies on Goodreads; that hasn’t resulted in any new ratings or reviews so far, but a fifth positive review was added to NetGalley today. I just got my copy of the IBPA catalog that goes out to bookstores; my quarter-page ad is on the very last page. Will anyone notice? Will it make a difference? I just checked the website of IL’s biggest indie bookstore and they won’t carry any book that can’t be returned. Bookstores traditionally have a pretty sweet deal: a 40% discount off the retail price and the right to return any unsold books. High yield, no risk—the kind of investment I can’t afford to offer as an indie author. If a store orders my book, they’ll have to commit to selling it. I’m guessing that means they’ll only order the prequel when a patron requests it—so if you’re able, please go to your bookstore and make a request! Another way to help authors is to ask your public library to add The Oracle’s Door to the children’s collection. Some libraries won’t acquire a book that hasn’t been reviewed by a major outlet but major outlets won’t review self-published books…I hear those policies are slowly changing but I guess time will tell. It should help that most libraries already have several titles of mine.

Tomorrow I head to San Diego for a Friday school visit and Saturday launch event at the New Children’s Museum. On Monday I’ll be taking over the Sankofa’s Pen social media feed. That’s a group started by Nadia Hohn to connect and promote Black kid lit creators in Canada. Though I live in the US, Nadia always includes me in every initiative, which I appreciate. Next Friday I talk to Matthew Winner for The Children’s Book podcast; other folks expressed interest in doing an interview a couple months ago and I have followed up but I’m keeping my expectations low. Promoting this book is my responsibility so I’ll just keep looking for opportunities to connect with kids. My November gig in Detroit looks like it has been canceled, but I met with a friend today who suggested a possible Halloween event at her private school. And, of course, I’m still working on the picture book with Purple! We’re ahead of schedule so that book should definitely be ready by the end of this month. Here’s another sneak peek: