preorder Archives - Jeanne Blasberg

The essay “Sustainability in Publishing and in Life” originally appeared on Jeannie’s Substack. Subscribe here for monthly updates!

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April 17, 2024 at Beacon Hill Bookstore and Cafe

Sustainability was a primary motivation for our getting into farming, however, the principles have seeped into every aspect of my life, including the way I think about book publishing.

Each year about 4 million book titles are released, about half of which are self-published and either e-readers or Print-on-Demand. The remainder generate print runs which are estimated in advance of a book’s release. Often, those estimates are way off. Creating physical books consumes pulp, water, glue, energy, transportation, and physical space for storage. With an average sell-through rate of 50%, that equates to hundreds of thousands of new books being returned to publishers and destroyed each year. This “traditional system” has been publicly scrutinized recently for a wide array of antiquated practices, but maybe not as much as it should be for the tons of waste it is responsible for.

Taking a more sustainable approach, my publisher and I decided to forgo a hard-cover release and were conservative with the initial print run. When stock runs out, we will opt for a print-on-demand model. I strongly encourage my readers to download digital e-reader copies or audiobooks (the narrators are phenomenal by the way!!) and start to transition to a reading life that consumes fewer natural resources.

Check out an excerpt of the audio version here:

Then there’s the human dimension of sustainability. Please don’t interpret the fact that I am not running around the country on a frenzied book tour as me not caring as much. I am committed more than ever to my work: to creation, expression, art, and leaving the earth a better place.

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Flynn Creek Farm in all its earthy glory.

I hope you have a meaningful Earth Day and incorporate one new practice into your life — compost food waste, forego insecticides in your yard, or just buy less stuff.

As always, thanks for reading!

PS – I just finished JAMES by Percival Everett and I’m finishing up SOLITO by Javier Zamora, both of which I highly recommend!!

Four years ago this month, our nation shut down with the onset of the COVID pandemic. Thinking back on those days still elicits painful memories of confusion, disruption, and terrible loss. We each have unique stories of how COVID impacted our lives. The first half of 2020 irreversibly changed my outlook. I became fixated on our world’s fragility and brokenness, feelings that led to selling our family home in Boston and investing in farmland among other things.

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My desk in the pantry, guarding the food and close to the coffeemaker. Also, Brady and Churro kept me company (furry friends bottom left).

But mid-March of 2020, before those personal shifts were set in motion, I was hunkering down in our pantry while the rest of my family staked claim to more private workstations, and threw myself into drafting the manuscript that would eventually become Daughter of a Promise.

It was inevitable that the storyline would coincide with COVID. How could it not? One early draft practically read like a diary of domestic insanity including tracking down n-95 masks, washing off groceries, and wearing rubber gloves to get the mail. I knew of authors whose manuscripts were drafted or were in the publishing queue during big world or political events, leading to the question of how to address them. When I equivocated, an author friend reminded me:

“It’s our job to document the blood in the streets.”

Several in the publishing industry warned against it, saying readers would not have an appetite for revisiting those years. Nevertheless, I sensed COVID would play a major role in my novel from the onset. Stories exist, after all, to help us make sense of what’s happened. Perhaps returning to those days in a character’s shoes makes it easier to process. What do you think? Given that three of my favorite novelists recently came out with books incorporating COVID puts me in good company:

Daughter of a Promise will pub in less than two weeks!! I’m dropping teaser videos like the one above on #trailertuesday, follow my Instagram to not miss any!

A full schedule of live events is on my website, but my first three stops will be:

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU!!

Tag Archive for: preorder

Sustainability in Publishing and in Life

Where were you four years ago? COVID in the rearview (and the writing)