So CAMP is out a week from today, and there's been amazing reviews, a movie deal and so much support! I'm amazed, and grateful - and also terrified. Queer books are hard to sell. Books are hard to sell now. And a lot is riding on this one, for me and any future books I write.

That's why I've been emphasizing pre-orders. That first week is so important. It determines how excited people get - how interested the media gets, which leads to more excitement and sales.

Selling Jack of Hearts was hard. Not the hate mail, I brushed that off pretty easily, but the silence. The way people wouldn't even consider it and just didn't respond to pitches or queries. It was a book made invisible (in the US), and it suffered for it - and so did I.

At this point, my YA career is at a tipping point. If Camp does well, I get to write more queer books! If it doesn't... that's probably it for me. It's my 6th book overall. I've never had a major success, never gathered a large loyal audience.

I've had editors refuse to read books because they knew they'd have to reject it anyway, based on my sales. I've been approached for projects later abandoned based on my sales. It's been rough. If I were straight and wrote straight stories, would it be easier? Probably.

But I also feel like queer stories are why I'm here. To give the queer kids - the me kids - the stuff I didn't get when I was their age. To try to give them something I wish I'd had earlier; a love of my queerness, a love of the queer community, a feeling of place in history.

I'll probably delete this later. No one wants to know the dark side of publishing, and I don't want to offend editors (it's not their fault, so that's not my intention). But it's hard out there, and I don't have the bright shiny excitement of being a debut. I'm old.

So when I say please pre-order, what I mean is 'please give me a chance to write more books. Please save me.' If you want to see more of my books, if you think these stories have value, then please pre-order. Thank you. https://bookshop.org/books/camp-9780316537759/9780316537759