4 Months to Publication: I started a newsletter (plus, giveaway)

Dear reader,

Today is June 23rd (at the time I’m drafting this, obviously) and there are 127 days left until my debut novel, To Bargain with Mortals is published and out in the world. This has been a dream of mine for the last ten or so years of my life, though I will admit that the closer I get to that date, the scarier it seems. I wrote my first complete novel between 2017-2018, which means that for seven years, I got to gatekeep my work amongst only my fiercest cheerleaders and advocates. On October 28th, 2025, the gatekeeping comes to an end. The biggest haters in the world can walk into a bookstore or go online and order a copy of my book, and then tag me in heaps of scathing reviews.

Don’t get me wrong - I couldn’t be more excited to publish a book. Like I just told you, this has been a major life goal for me since I was in high school. Criticism is a normal and natural part of the industry, and I think false positivity does nothing for growth. I have the self awareness to know that I didn’t write a perfect book. I don’t think my book is seminal text, a radically genius masterpiece, or anything even close to that. Thinking optimistically, To Bargain with Mortals should be the worst book I ever write, because all I ever want is to get better. (Great sales pitch: just start trashing your book). I knew this and I still chose to share my book with the world, because for all the people who might hate it, there are still going to be people who like it, maybe even love it, and that’s who I’m doing it for.

But putting myself out there and opening myself up is still intimidating — so intimidating, in fact, that advertising my book feels like a monumental challenge sometimes. I don’t want to make Reels or TikToks, which can take hours at a time and then get a total of 10 views and 3 comments (2 of which are spam). I don’t have a camera roll full of aesthetic photographs readily available to post to my grid. And frankly, Twitter (because I’ll never call it X) has just not been the same since Elon took over, and none of the Twitter wannabes (Threads, Bluesky) have the vibes I’m looking for.

So, I’m giving newsletters a try. I’m not going to commit to any kind of post frequency (I can’t even commit to going to the gym regularly) BUT on the plus side that means I will never spam you with emails. As I laid out in the handy little welcome email, I will use this for news about my books/publishing stuff + other miscellaneous thoughts related to writing, media I’m enjoying, etc.

So, since we’re on the topic - there is a GOODREADS GIVEAWAY going on right now until July 15, 2025. You can get my book for free here and since you’re already on Goodreads don’t forget to add it to your TBR. If you liked reading my newsletter and want to read other things I’ve written, you can pre-order my book (I’ve listed the most popular places that are selling it here). And I know I said I wasn’t a big Reels girlie but I do post stories and occasionally add to my grid over on Instagram @rabasuwrites.

Okay! We’re already over 500 words so I won’t test your attention span any longer.

Bye for now,

R.A.