1000 Words Tour Report

Hi friends.

Greetings from the road. This morning I’m on my way back to New Orleans after five events in a row. The book has been out for six days, and I have had the most fun with it, but I am glad to be going home. I miss my tiny dog.

The book has been sold out online for most of the week. On the one hand, this is a good problem to have because it means more folks than we expected bought it all at once (probably because of the NPR-Today show back-to-back appearances). But also it means for basically the entire first week the book was on sale—when the book was getting the most press and attention—it was hard to actually sell more copies of it unless an independent bookstore had it.

Independent bookstores are obviously an amazing force and they really showed up for me. If you follow this newsletter you know I always suggest you buy your books through the indies first. And I had a great time visiting my favorite stores this week! But lots of folks shop online these days, as we know, and not every community has a bookstore. As of this morning, it’s now available on Amazon again, though still not on Bookshop.org or Barnes & Noble.

I know that my publisher has ordered more print runs, and by the end of the month there will be a lot more copies in stock out there. I will keep my fingers crossed that people who were not able to buy it initially will remember that it exists and they will still buy it later. I will not lie, I found it frustrating. But then I went on tour, and my heart sang the whole time.

If you believe it, then it’s true

I just wanted to express how grateful I am to the bookstores, my friends who joined me on stage, and to all the people who showed up at the events. Thank you thank you thank you.

To the folks who showed up, I tried hard to receive everything you were giving me. I loved asking you all about how your writing was going and hearing your responses. It was just a rich exchange in real life that felt so valuable.

And I loved it when I met people and they were in a good place with their writing and I could tell they were really feeling themselves via their words. That moment when everything is feeling delightful and fresh and new—it’s so exhilarating.

And I loved it when I met people and they were in a moment of transition in their lives and were really wanting to connect with their creativity again. I hope this book helps you.

And I loved it when I met people who were in the thick of their projects, just working so hard to carry themselves across the finish line. You’re going to make it, all of you. I can just feel it.

But most of all I loved it when I met people who had done #1000wordsofsummer before and were longtime newsletter subscribers and we were all just saying hello to each other and it was so fucking nice! Like, hi everyone. I am so glad I got to meet you in person.

My favorite request for an inscription was a woman buying the book for her friend and she asked me to just write Start, and I thought: that’s a good friend.

I shockingly did not take a lot of photos at the events, which is very unlike me. But I was too busy talking and having a good time! Here are some fun photos I did manage to get:

Me and Jacques Pierre Francois, the creator of the #1000wordsofsummer visual brand identity, at the event at Baldwin & Co.

Signing stock at Books are Magic, when my hairstyle was still holding up. (They still have a few signed copies left which you can order here!)

Green room cuteness for the Books are Magic event at St. Ann’s. Top row: Maria Semple, Mira Jacob, me. Bottom row: Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Kristen Arnett, Maris Kreizman, Emma Straub

Onstage with Emma Straub, Kristen Arnett, Alex Chee, and Mira Jacob

Green room at the Loyalty Bookstore Event, the extremely talented Jennifer Close and Nicole Chung (and my shoe)

SRO at Loyalty!

I have more events coming up, including a free virtual event with brilliant contributors Christopher Gonzalez, Courtney Sullivan and Camille T. Dungy this Thursday. (Register here.) And I’ll be in Jacksonville this Saturday for two events! After being up North this past week, I’ll be tackling the south for the rest of the winter, doing in-person events in New Orleans, Mississippi, Charlottesville, Baton Rouge, and Greensboro. (If you would like to book me for your organization, please contact my speaking agency.)

One last note is this week I did two write-alongs, which I’ve never done before, and I really loved them. I enjoyed sitting in the same space with you all, and getting some thinking and working done. It made me smile. The vibes were excellent.

But of course I was thinking: you don’t need me to be there though. You can write with a friend. You could organize your own little writing session with some people in your community. It is kind of magic when we are all together pushing each other along.

Next week, we will be back to normal, I think, and I will try to write to some topics that came up in conversation at events on the road. For now, I say thanks to you all one last time for making this a great pub week.

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram.