I got a book deal. Now what?

This is totally dope news and I’m super excited to share it. A book proposal of mine was accepted. And now I get to finish the dang thing.

The basics

The book’s called “NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING, AND OTHER ADULTHOOD SECRETS.” It’s a humor non-fiction book, geared toward recent college graduates, millennials and anyone else who may need some guidance in their life. It’ll focus on work, dating, friendship, and generally not looking like a dumbass. (My lovely book editor wrote that sentence.)

It’s a book I wish existed when I graduated college, one I think needs to exist. Which is exactly why I’m writing it. And exactly why I’m stoked an amazing publisher, TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House, will be printing it.

How did this happen?

During National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, I wrote a 50,000+ word book in 16 days. It was meant as a general self-help book. It wasn’t great. (That’s what a first draft is, Andy.) But it was something I wanted to make real.

Eventually, I thought, I would go through a few dozen more drafts and see if I could get someone to dig it and publish it. It was a longer term goal. I put it aside and started working again on my murder mystery set in the newspaper business, the same novel 10,000 other journalists are writing. (But mine has a secret society so it’s different! Right?)

Then at the end of December, a Medium post I wrote, “What I Learned Not Drinking For Two Years,” went viral. Like insane. I even went on TV! Twice!

A book publisher reached out. I freaked out. Then I talked to literary agent Noah Ballard, who I’ve known since college, who I’d previously worked on a book proposal with for another project. We worked on a book proposal for the publisher.

I freaked out during the whole process. I wrote an outline, a bunch of sample chapters and more. Many people helped look over my work. Noah offered great guidance. He made me change my original title, because it sounded like something Paul Reiser would write. (It did.)

The publisher accepted. I freaked out an incredibly amount and called my mom and dad and sister.

And now here we are.

What comes next?

Now I write the damn thing.

They plan to release it during the summer of 2017. So I’ve got a deadline, one I’ll be hitting. Because then a marketing machine goes into effect. Then I do lots of promotion. Then you buy the book, multiple copies please, and tell everyone you know to buy it. (Or just buy them multiple copies, too!)

For those wondering: I’ve still got a day job. I plan on having one for a long time. As you’re probably aware, Real Artists Have Day Jobs. (Right, Sara Benincasa?)

Most importantly, I look forward to all of this. It’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of learning, a lot of mistake-making.

I’m a super lucky dude. This is all random happenstance. The stars aligned just right. Many, many people had to say and do nice things for this to happen. And for that I’m in the universe’s debt.

Okay, cool, so, anything else?

Yes! I’ll be writing about what it’s like to write a book. Yeah, super meta, I know. But as I believe strongly in open source technology, I believe strongly in Showing Your Work outside of writing software.

I’ve been helped by many who’ve written about their book publishing process. So it’s only fair I do the same.

If you’d like to follow along, sign up for my mailing list. It won’t always be about the writing process, but I’ll try to keep folks updated.

You can also always yell at me on Twitter. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And maybe you can like some of my jokes.