An Ode to Mass Market Paperbacks
If you ordered my book, you might have been surprised by its size...
My book dropped on Sunday, August 13th. It’s been out for a week now and I believe things are going well?
I didn’t really have plans on celebrating the release. It was a busy weekend. Life’s also been a bit heavy as of late. Fire season is particularly intense this year and I’m having a difficult time tuning out the news. I’m also dealing with personal stuff, but I prefer to compartmentalize the personal with the professional. Anyway, I woke up early on Sunday release of Ending In Ashes. I got ready for church. I’d actually forgotten about the book release until I checked my social media and found myself tagged with messages of excitement.
My book was out!
I don’t know why I have difficulty celebrating stuff. It’s the imposter syndrome, probably. I tend to downplay my successes every time something good happens in my writing career. People congratulate me in person and I often respond in the most humbling way possible.
“Oh, it’s not like a big deal, you know? It’s just a small press book.”
“It’s not like a big release or anything. You can’t even buy it at Barnes & Noble, so it’s just like… you know, an Internet thing.”
“Like, it’s just a niche group of people who are going to read it.”
People insist that I’ve done something really cool and big and important and I laugh and shrug it off while also gathering serotonins. I smile. I thank them.
On Sunday night, I rapidly refreshed Goodreads, hoping to see reviews full of praise. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed all the reviews I’ve received so far, but I needed some kind of “official” sign of the release being real.
That official sign came late on Sunday night. I put the kids to bed and refreshed Goodreads to find a two-star review. The first two-star review. Kinda butthurt, I read the review and found it to be a fair two-stars. I read the fair criticism and thought, How dare you give two stars, on this, the day of my book’s release?
I can’t blame a person for the timing of their less-than-favourable review. A reader can review a book however the hell they want. Perhaps it was my timing that was poor. Either way, I was already high and tired, so I went to bed.
I received my copies on Monday. (International shipping, amirite?) I wanted to take a video of myself opening them but it just felt kinda fake? Is that not a part of any emerging author’s career, is feeling fake as fuck?
So I didn’t upload the video, just tossed a copy in my purse on Tuesday and brought it to work with me. I took some time to appreciate it before starting my shift.
I held it. I read the praise. I read a few passages.
It’s such a cute little book. Teeny. Glossy.
It’s nostalgic.
I used to love browsing the mass market paperbacks at the grocery store during my pre-teen years. It was the mid-90s and most of the book departments still used those wire shelves that held the books, face-out style.
My family was low income so I never got to buy any books. I just got to look at them. Touch them. Flip through them. Some of them were embossed, like the Stephen King books that freaked me out. Some of them had foiled details, like the Sabrina the Teenage Witch tie-in books I collected. Some of them had a keyhole and a glorious stepback cover like the V.C. Andrews books all the older girls were reading.
I loved the V.C. Andrews books the most.
The absolute best part of retro paperbacks is the illustrations. Some, like the V.C. Andrews covers, were commissioned illustrations that really added to the appeal to me as a reader. The young female protagonists looked out at me, not really begging for help, but just telling me that she’d seen some shit and she wanted me to know about it.
60-70s era Gothic paperbacks were normally “cover-coded” with an illustration that followed the aesthetics of, a dark atmosphere, and a woman in the foreground running for dear life, could be swapped out endlessly.
I have a small collection of vintage gothic paperbacks. I’ve read a few and can admit that most of them aren’t so great. The cover typically has nothing to do with the story contained within, but I love pulling the books from my shelf. The covers speak to me, each woman with some secrets to spill. A story worth telling. The horrors of the female experience to be told.
That’s what I love about gothic suspense, is that there’s that foolish romance I can admit is a guilty pleasure. I love the thrill, the danger, the questionable sex. All of it jammed in a blender of formula. The cover’s just the cherry on top. So cliche, but still enticing.
Pick it up. Chew it. Tie a knot in the stem. Spit out the seed.
I’m so grateful to have worked with Cassandra L. Thompson, who commissioned the talented October Comics to illustrate my gothic dream cover. Fey Lane added the text and textures that gave the cover that vintage pulpy dream. It’s different and it’s fun and an experiment that I hope readers love as much I do.
This mass-market paperback book really takes me back to that unhinged and naive pre-teen girl I stared out as in the grocery store. I hope it gives you the same feeling, and if you’re so inclined to review Ending in Ashes, I’m sure your Goodreads review (be it good or bad) will be properly timed.1
For real, though, in terms of recent horror community events, I can take your bad reviews.
I've got my copy and I can't wait to start reading it. The cover really is something special, I love it.
I might buy one and donate it to our library. Our local library is the hub of the hamlet. So it might help you. Best of luck. Love your updates