It’s a bad habit, I know, but the first thing I did on the morning of November 28, as I do every morning, was check my phone’s notifications.
My sister had tagged me in a picture on Instagram. I tapped through to see this:
The Guilty Wife, my debut novel, in real life. On a shelf in an actual bookshop in Australia.
And just like that, I was officially a published author.
It’s one of those life goals, a massive dream I’d had for about as long as I can remember, which earlier this year jumped a whole lot closer to becoming a reality.
But now…now it’s actually, properly real.
Throughout the rest of the day, between pinching myself, I had messages from family and friends telling me they’d bought a copy of my book or, better yet, sending me pictures of The Guilty Wife in the wild (it seems a little outrageous to call anything in Australia ‘wild’ unless it’s literally about to kill you, but I’m sticking with it).
Then the doorbell rang, and I was handed a delicious delivery of Ladurée macarons from my sister, which was probably the best way I could think of to celebrate Australian publication day.
I’m not going to lie, there were moments when I thought I might throw up. Not because of the macaron overdose, but because people were actually going to read my book! What if I got a bad review – or worse – what if my Mum got mad because there are two (I counted them for this exact reason) swear words in there?
But I wasn’t going to let those feelings take over. This was a day for celebration!
Side note: In case you’re wondering, Mum didn’t get mad (although she did notice the swearing). She said that she was glad it wasn’t, and I quote, smutty. High praise; thanks, Mum.
The Guilty Wife eBook Publication
But the celebrations didn’t end there, because just three days later, on December 1st, The Guilty Wife eBook was released in the UK!
Which means… *drumroll, please!* …you, too, can now read The Guilty Wife (currently just 99p on Amazon, so now’s the time to snap it up).
Thankfully, I wasn’t sitting at home on publication day, madly hitting the refresh button on Amazon and Goodreads. I was in Strasbourg, with my friends, taking a day trip to the Black Forest to eat black forest cake (everyone keeps telling me it’s officially a gateaux, but you know what I mean).
More on that later, but suffice to say, it was a pretty memorable way to spend eBook publication day.
Since getting home, I have spent an above average amount of time hitting refresh on Amazon and Goodreads, and have been delighted to see so many lovely things being said about a book that I wrote. Still wrapping my head around that one.
If you’re wondering about the paperback version, it’s not available in the UK yet – Australia was lucky, and got it first! But you can pre-order the paperback on Amazon now, and you’ll get it when it comes out on January 25.
However…if you’d like to win a signed paperback copy of The Guilty Wife, I’ll be announcing a competition very soon to win one of 5 copies. Sign up to my newsletter below, and follow me on Instagram to find out the details first.
In the meantime, I want to say an enormous thank you to everyone who has bought and read The Guilty Wife so far (if you enjoyed it, please don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon), and if you’re wondering what’s next, there’s a sneak peek of my second novel, The Other Sister, at the back of The Guilty Wife for you to enjoy!
Huge congratulations!
Just finished it. Loved it, am incredibly proud, and have sent the requisite recommendations to all my bookie friends. xxx