The Debut Author | Furthermore August 2025

Or what I would go back and tell my debut author self

I am now on a quest to find the perfect hammock

Happy August! (Side note: how is it already August?) This past month flew by between two trips—one to the Washington coast, and one to Santa Fe—and lots of quality time with family and friends.

Santa Fe in particular was a lovely retreat for me. My husband was heading there for a business trip and he suggested that I tag along and use it as a brainstorming retreat. If you read my last newsletter, you know I’m in the process of brainstorming some new ideas, and the change of scenery ended up being hugely inspiring for me. I filled page after page of my notebook and came back home with a full synopsis written.

The high desert is gorgeous… so much magic there, and I hope to be able to return one day.

Aside from brainstorming, I’ve been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes promo work for The Sun and the Starmaker. Writing essays, drafting pitches, coming up with marketing ideas, etc. It’s been nice to have the time to focus on that stuff because it’s the first to go when I’m on deadline. I’ve also been using the time to learn Photoshop, something I’ve wanted to do for years and just haven’t gotten around to. I’m still very much a beginner, but I’m really enjoying learning something new!

Part of gearing up for The Sun and the Starmaker has meant being more present on Instagram. It’s been so nice to connect with readers again after over a year of being mostly quiet, and if you happen to have seen my stories yesterday, I did an ask-me-anything and promised to answer at least one question here in my newsletter. I got many variations of the question below, so that’s what I’ll focus on today!

What I’d Go Back and Tell My Debut Author Self

lots of variations of “do you have any advice for debut authors?”

It’s interesting for me to answer this question because I still feel like I’m just starting out. It will have been two-and-a-half years since Bring Me Your Midnight released when The Sun and the Starmaker hits shelves (what is time?), and so much of what I’m about to say is just as much a reminder for me as it is for anyone else.

For anyone who is new here, I have three published novels out in the world with my fourth releasing in February. My debut released in 2021, and I’m just over four years removed from that experience.

I would frame this more as “things that worked well for me” and/or “things I wish I knew” versus “advice.” We’re all different, and if you asked fifty different authors this question, you’d receive a lot of varying responses. These are mine and obviously extend from my own experiences in publishing, so your mileage may vary.

Without further ado, here are the things I’d go back and tell my debut author self:

1. You/your career is not one book.

(Assuming you want to publish multiple books, of course.) The publishing industry emphasizes debuts so much that it creates a ton of pressure, so it makes sense why so many of us feel like our entire career hangs on how well or not well our debut novel does. Which is kind of wild when you think about it.

If I were in research, I doubt I’d expect to make a huge breakthrough in my first year. If I were in ultrasound (which I was!), I would not expect my first scan to be as good as the ones that follow. Still good, of course, but not the indicator of success for my entire career. So why do we treat debut novels as if there are only two outcomes: a huge breakout or a total failure? Instead, shouldn’t we be treating them as the first entry into a (hopefully) long career?

I certainly hope my debut novel, The Nature of Witches, is not the best book I ever write. In fact, I kind of hope it’s the worst in the sense that I’d like to think I’m improving—at least on a craft level—with every book. There are a ton of things that go into how well a book does that have nothing to do with the actual writing, and almost all of them are outside our control. But I would love to see a shift in how we approach the debut experience from launching one book/series to launching a career.

There are many authors who don’t “breakout” until their fifth, tenth, fifteenth published book. There are also many authors who don’t have a “breakout” but have very successful, rewarding careers with consistent sales. So I would tell myself to try and take some of the pressure off my debut, and instead of looking at it as my “one shot,” I would try to look at it as simply the first step in my career (easier said than done, I know).

2. As far as promotion and marketing goes, do what you enjoy and forget the rest.

Or at the very least, pick one or two things you want to focus on instead of spreading yourself too thin thinking you must be present on every single app and say yes to every single ask.

I decided early on that Instagram and my newsletter would be my two main areas of focus when it comes to promoting my books. I enjoy my newsletter, and Instagram is my favorite of all the social media platforms. If I had to be on TikTok, X, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram, I would completely burn out and end up not having much of a presence anywhere. Choosing one platform enables me to put effort into it in a way that feels sustainable for me.

The same goes for preorder campaigns and the like. If you’re running your own preorder campaign, it gets very expensive very quickly, not to mention how time-consuming it is. (And whether or not they move the needle is another question entirely.) So do a preorder campaign if you want to and think you’d enjoy it, but don’t do one just because you feel like you have to—you don’t.

Also, a tip here: if you’re going to do interviews with bloggers or other outlets, make a document of the most common questions you get asked (what inspired you to write this novel, what kind of research did you do for this book, what are your favorite books, etc) and save your answers. It will save you a ton of time.

3. Build community. Your writer friends will be your lifeline.

I know that “lifeline” sounds dramatic, but I have absolutely had days where my author friends were just that for me. Even after publication, this industry is full of rejection and disappointments, and it’s so important to have people you love and trust to work through those things with.

Alternatively, it is also true that one of the absolute best parts of this job is celebrating your friends’ wins.

This industry is full of wonderful humans. Put yourself out there and make those connections; you’ll be very glad you did.

4. Figure out what success means to you.

In service of this, I made a list in my planner called “author dreams”. You can add things like become a bestseller and/or get a movie deal on there (put it out into the universe and all that!), but most of my list included smaller moments that I had dreamt of as a child: walking into a bookstore and seeing my book on a shelf; hearing from a reader that they loved my book; being invited to do a signing.

Other things on my list were things like: have someone make character art of one of my characters; see a bookish tattoo inspired by one of my books; see a stranger reading one of my books out in public; receive a blurb from an author I admire; see one of my books mentioned in The Seattle Times.

Not all of these have happened but some of them have, and it’s incredible to look at my list and see the things I’ve been able to cross off.

The goalpost will inevitably move as your career grows; that’s normal. But it’s also so important to remember the things that felt like pipe dreams at one point.

5. Ask questions.

For a lot of us, we worked so hard and went through so many rejections to get to the point of seeing our book on a shelf that it almost feels like magic when it finally happens and we don’t want to rock the boat. I had this intense fear of being seeing as “high maintenance” if I asked too many questions, so I had a lot of meetings and email exchanges when I didn’t ask about things I didn’t understand or wasn’t sure of, all in service of not being high maintenance.

You are allowed to ask questions. Lots of them! You’ve never done this before—of course you’re going to have questions. Neither my editor nor my agent has ever made me feel bad about asking a question. You can be mindful of how you ask (like batching your questions into a single email versus sending a dozen different emails in the span of a week), but having questions does not make you high maintenance. Ask away.

6. Enjoy it.

I know this sounds silly to include, but it’s so easy to get caught up in points 1-5 that we forget to stop and consider how this is quite literally a dream coming true. Sometimes I will just sit and think about what it was like to be on the side of dreaming and hoping and aching to see my book on a shelf because that girl would be endlessly overjoyed by all that has happened. There have been disappointments and heartbreaks along the way. There has also been so much happiness, and there is nothing else in the world I’d rather be doing. And the fact that I get to? There’s nothing better.

Enjoy it. Celebrate it. Go to the bookstore and weep in front of your novel and bask in the wonder of your dream coming true.

eleven years ago, dreaming and hoping and aching

two days ago <3

A Moment of Gratitude

Following point 6 above, I’ m endlessly thankful to be in the position of writing this newsletter about the debut experience. What an absolute joy. 🤍

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There are lots of exciting things on the horizon, and I can’t wait to share them all with you! In the meantime, please consider adding The Sun and the Starmaker to Goodreads or preordering—it means the world.

And if you want to follow along on Instagram, you can find me @TimesNewRachel.

As always, thank you so much for being here.

Love,

Rachel

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