Okay, so let me tell you a bit about 40-LOVE.

Once upon a time, 2+ years ago, there was an anthology. All the stories in that anthology were supposed to be romcom novellas of up to 20K words and had to include beach-related shenanigans.

"I'm ON IT!" I happily said to myself...

...and promptly wrote a story that was 40K words.

That story was 40-LOVE, and while I was very happy with it, I suspected my anthology mates would not be, since it was literally TWICE THE LENGTH it was supposed to be?

So then I wrote another story! That one was only 28K words! Which was...still not within the limits of what we'd been told!

That story was DESIRE AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA.

"No problem," I said to myself. "I'll just--"

And then the anthology collapsed.

All the bigger names pulled out, and suddenly I had two novellas and nowhere to publish them (at the time, I wasn't self-pubbed yet).

Me:

Enter @seyitsme. She became my fearless, hardworking agent and looked over the many (MANY) unpublished stories I'd piled up over the years. Because our goal was print, we decided I'd self-pub all my novellas. Which, in theory, would include both stories for the Anthology of Doom.

Only...the story she most loved, most connected to, was 40-LOVE. Body diversity and fat rep is important to me, clearly, and it's important to her too, and she wanted to shop that manuscript. For print. Which would mean expanding it to roughly twice its length.

Because I love and trust her, I did. And that first expansion was...uh, not good?

So, gritting my teeth all the while, I tried again.

Then I had it. An 80K-word novel to be proud of, and one we could shop. So we did.

Yeah, no one wanted it.

BUT: Along with 40-LOVE, I'd included proposals for two future books. Ones about fandom and fanfic and fatness and family.

The first of those books is SPOILER ALERT. Avon acquired it after reading the proposal. They're publishing the story in trade paperback October 6th.

I self-pubbed DESIRE AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA last summer, and I'm still very fond of it.

As of today, I've self-pubbed 40-LOVE, and I couldn't be prouder of my story.

So here's the thing. The anthology collapsed, and at the time, my career was essentially stalled. It was unequivocally A Bad Thing.

But out of that failed project, I now have two self-pubbed books, including 40-LOVE. I also have two books coming out through Avon.

I've been lucky. I know that down to my bones.

But what I'm trying to say is: Good things can come from failure. Not always, but sometimes.

If you feel like you've failed, please be kind to yourself. Because you *tried*, which deserves respect. Because you deserve kindness.

Because disaster can sometimes turn into good fortune, and you simply can't know that until it happens.

(It can also turn into boob jokes and references to ABBA, but that may just be me.)

Thank you to the many--MANY--friends who read this story in all its iterations and provided such smart, kind feedback. Thank you to Sarah, for supporting this book and urging me to make it MORE. Thank you to @lenikauffman, for giving it the most beautiful cover imaginable.

Thank you to all the bloggers and reviewers who read the ARC and were so kind and thoughtful in their responses. Thank you to all my readers, for your trust and enthusiasm.

And finally, thank you to everyone who's made my release day so damn special. I love you, and I appreciate you so very much.