ABA Winter Institute '24

Shanghailanders at the annual booksellers conference

February’s trip to Cincinnati for the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute feels like a dream. Maybe that’s because I flew in and out for a quick four night trip from Shanghai - I slept on average two hours per night, so jet-lagged but so happy. Or maybe that’s because I can’t get over how unreal it was, my first big pre-pub event for Shanghailanders. I spent my time in Ohio with my publicist Nicole doing author dinners, visiting bookstores, and signing books. What a pleasure it was to meet booksellers from all corners of the country, as well as other authors who were brought over by their respective publishing houses. I signed my first copy of Shanghailanders for someone I didn’t know.

Signing copies of the arc for booksellers. My signing table partner was Zito Madu, author of The Minotaur at Calle Lanza - highly recommend.

My time at the conference taught me a few things:

1. My publisher Spiegel & Grau is fabulous. Several booksellers made sure to tell me that S&G are pushing my novel hard. I feel this intuitively, but how lovely to have heard it from others.

2. There are so many books coming out every season. The immensity of the publishing industry as a whole is humbling. I know, and have always known on a theoretical level, that one book is just one book in a sea of books, but seeing the scale of things in person made me adjust my expectations and levels of anxiety - in a good way. It gave me context.

   

   Context: Shanghailanders in the galley room (where publishers give away piles of free books to booksellers). This is only one aisle in an enormous conference ballroom.

3. The book is living its own life. I mean, I had the insane experience of being told how much my book meant to another human being.

And so, I realized, that most of my job is done. Of course I did a handful of presentations and meetings at Winter Institute, but it was a fraction of my publicist’s commitments. Nicole was doing everything everywhere all at once. I felt distinctly how different the roles of the publicist and the author are at this particular stage in the publication process. Editorial is a tiny speck in the rearview mirror; we have entered completely into the territory of sales.

Shanghailanders is a little less than two months out from publication. As always, you can pre-order the book if you’re already sure you would like to read / listen to it. And on that note, I have some exciting updates to share:

1. British actor Mei Mei Macleod will be narrating the audiobook! Hachette Audio sent me three audition tapes to choose from, and the moment I heard her beautiful voice I knew she was the one. Is it weird to say that hers was somehow exactly the voice I’d been hoping for? I chose a single narrator with a British accent, and maybe I’ll go into all the reasons for that (as opposed to, say, a cast, with various accents) in a future post.

2. Events for book tour are shaping up, featuring conversations with great friends and writers and teachers. So far we’ve got LA, SF, BOS, NYC, with plans in the works for London and Shanghai. I’m really looking forward to sharing the novel with new readers. Events will be updated on my website.

3. Shanghailanders was recently featured on the NYTimes list of 27 fiction books to look out for this spring. :)