Sure, the sky is falling, but lemme tell you about my book!!!!!!!!

Some spring satire: How it feels to be an author promoting a book in 2025

The Author flicks on her ring light. She is made-up, aglow. She adjusts the light, turns her head slightly, decides her hair needs a bit more hairspray. She disappears from the frame, then returns, newly coiffed. She smiles and hits “Go Live.”

“As some of you know, I have a new book coming out in May,” she begins. “It’s—”

A thrash of wind cuts her off, rattling the window panes, sending tree branches aflutter. Her smile falters but she clears her throat and starts again.

“My…my new book is a thriller, and I had the idea for it when—”

Crash! A branch thrusts through the windowpane; shards of glass litter the floor. Now the storm outside is raging, a symphony of wind and rain. The Author refocuses, raising her voice slightly to drown out the cacophony.

So, uh…anyone in need of some reading material? (Photo by cottonbro studio)

“I had the idea for this book back in 2020,” she says, “during a solo trip to—”

A sideways blast of rain soaks the Author like a firehose. She stops short, spitting rainwater, and shoves her now-wet hair off her face. She swallows, blinks. Smiles anew.

“Just a moment, folks.”

She lifts the phone on its little stand and carries it into the living room, careful to position herself to hide the mess in the hallway. She settles onto the sofa. Beams.

“Where was I? I decided to write this book because—”

She startles at the blast of a horn just outside her window. Despite her dogged focus, she can’t help but turn and peer outside. Her eyes reflect an orangey glow that starts to intensify against her skin, like a spotlight cranked brighter and brighter. Fire—that’s fire, a fire-tornado, in fact, a whirl of flames weaving through her neighborhood. She squints, peers into the window.

No, not one fire-tornado. At least three.

Her phone pings—her viewers are losing interest, X’ing out—and she shakes her head.

“Um, sorry. I wanted to tell you all about my new novel, out in May—”

The walls—the walls around her levitate off the ground, flapping for a moment like paper in the breeze before being sucked into the fire tornado. The curls she worked so hard to tame whip and tousle in the wind and all around her, the sound is deafening: sirens and wind and alarmed shouts, cars honking, trucks backfiring. Was that a gunshot?

“I hope this book is a real page-turner,” she says, refocusing on the phone’s front-facing camera. “I’m so excited for you all to read it, and—”

She feels them before she sees them: locusts, thousands of them, dropping from the sky and landing all over her home’s now-bare foundation with a strange plinking sound. Shrieking, she rakes them off her head and arms, but there are too many, a blizzard of insects.

“This book!” she cries in the middle of her jerky dance. “It’s about a woman who—”

She turns—those are hoofbeats, clacking above the din of buzzing bugs and the roar of the storm. They’re heading straight for her, four horsemen moving at a terrifying gallop, enormous and determined.

They come closer, closer, then tear past her, knocking her off her feet. She flies through the air like a rag doll and lands on her side. Her phone stand topples over, too; her feed is a sideways view of the ground, now a minefield of downed branches and curls of smoke.

Hello? Any readers down here? (Photo by cottonbro studio)

The Author coughs, rolls onto her stomach, and touches her forehead, where blood drips from a gash. She army crawls toward the phone, yelling to be heard.

“IT WOULD MEAN THE WORLD TO ME IF YOU PREORDERED!” She ducks as a vulture streaks past. “PREORDERS ARE SO IMPORTANT TO AUTHORS. ESPECIALLY FROM AN INDIE BOOKSTORE! YOU CAN—”

There’s a boom, one so loud she instinctually stops short and covers her ears. The vibration makes the phone flip over, and its screen cracks from top to bottom.

The Author lies there, breathing hard. She listens to the wail of sirens and the high-pitched crackle of fire, the sixteen hoofed feet barreling back her way.

My galley, she thinks, cursing herself silently. I was going to hold up a galley of my book.

The racket beats against her eardrums like a physical mallet: screams and shouts, cars honking, people running, trees cracking and toppling, locusts with their fizzing drone, actual drones—

Something pierces it all, a polite, familiar ding. Her phone. The Author opens her eyes and, with effort, rolls onto her side. Her arm shakes as she reaches for her device. Through the spiderwebbed glass of the screen, there’s a notification.

She’s received a new email. It’s from her publishing team.

The subject line: Sales update.

Trembling, she unlocks her phone. Reopens Instagram. Her face is streaked with dirt and blood; her voice is a croak. Rain and locusts and small twigs and ash coat her hair. But still, she goes live.

“Hey, guys,” she rasps, holding the phone close so the mic can catch her. “As some of you know, I have a book coming out…”