First things first, the winner of my giveaway for a physical ARC of You Shouldn't Be Here is MARCY S.! Congratulations, Marcy! Thanks everyone for playing along, and stay tuned for more giveaways in the future!

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Who else functions more or less like a plant? This is a thing I've realized about myself in recent years; my energy level tends to directly coincide with how sunny and warm it is. If it's gray or cold, I essentially go dormant, but as soon as the sun comes out and the temperature starts creeping up, all of a sudden I have a spring in my step and can conquer the world.

Folks have suggested a sun lamp to help even me out, but I'm not sure that UV exposure is really the main factor in my weather-related mood swings, since I can look out the window in the morning and instantly feel either energized or like a lump of boneless mush, depending on the sight that greets me. Maybe it would help, but I am skeptical.

Anyway, this is all to say that it's been sunny and warm for the past week or so, my early spring plants are starting to wake up, and I have been enjoying my morning walks around my flower beds very much. Today it was cold but I still did a quick little jaunt around the front of the house to say hello to the newest blooms. Here, have some!

*Be warned that I can be insufferable about my flowers, and these are just the early arrivals. Brace yourself for many more pics to come.

Preorders, etc.

Just a reminder that the You Shouldn't Be Here preorder campaign comes with three adorable stickers! If you've already preordered a copy of the book, make sure to fill out my form so I can mail you your goodies.

And if you haven't preordered yet, I'd love it if you would! While of course, I'm a huge fan of folks purchasing my books at any time, preorders are particularly helpful to authors in a number of ways. Here are just a few:

• They count toward our first-week sales, increasing our odds of hitting bestseller lists. (Odds which are always long, but every little bit helps! And if we do hit one of those elusive lists, we get to keep that "bestseller" title forever, which helps quite a bit, both with sales and also behind the scenes.)
• They show our publishers that there is interest in our work, which can lead to increased publisher support both now and down the road, including increased initial print runs if there is enough demand.
• They help build buzz for the book ahead of time, increasing the book's chances for a successful launch.
• If you order through your local indie bookstore (which I highly recommend if you are able!), it shows the booksellers that there is local demand for the book, increasing the odds that they'll stock it on their shelves, increase their existing orders for in-store copies, or maybe even be more willing to host us for an author event in the future. (Also if you order through Parnassus Books or The Bookshop, two of our local indies here in Nashville, your book will be signed!)
• If you're ordering from an independent bookstore, they help mitigate risk by guaranteeing sales. Indie bookstores are almost always working with pretty slim margins, and preorders help them have a better idea of how many books to order so that they're taking less of a risk.
• If you purchase online, preorders can help increase the book's ranking in searches, leading to higher discoverability.
• They help us pay our bills. Not glamorous, but this is a job, and as is the case with any job, even if you enjoy your work, you kinda need the paycheck too.

Speaking of preorders, if you're attending ApollyCon next month, I have a hardcover preorder for I'll Stop the World running right now, since the official ApollyCon bookstore will only be selling the paperbacks. Plus, you get stickers and/or art! Reserve your copy here. (Note, this is only for ApollyCon attendees; I will not be shipping any unclaimed orders after ApollyCon.)

Doorbells are dead to me

Now on to the main focus of this newsletter. Gather 'round, children, let me tell you a story.

A while back (years ago now), someone rang my doorbell. It doesn't really matter who it was or why they were there; all you need to know for the purposes of this story is that I was not expecting this visit, and while the visit itself was not traumatic, it marked the beginning of a series of extremely traumatic events.

Today, after a lot of time (and therapy), I am mostly recovered from that period of life. But for a long time after that initial visit, I was not anywhere close to okay. And one of the ways that not-okayness manifested was that I started experiencing panic attacks every time my doorbell rang.
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I mostly held it together externally, but on the inside, my heart would begin to race, I would begin sweating, my chest would tighten uncomfortably, my breath would quicken, and I would feel my fight/flight/freeze response kick in, giving me the overwhelming urge to flee. This happened every time the doorbell rang, even when I was expecting it! It didn't matter that I'd know a friend was coming over. If they rang the bell, that trauma response would spring to attention. Sure, I could eventually talk myself back down, but it would take a while, long after I knew that it was "just" the UPS guy, or a kid selling Girl Scout cookies, or the pest control guy asking me to put the dogs inside.

That's just how it goes with trauma. It's not rational; it's driven by emotion and instinct. Sometimes, we can see or hear or smell something, and all of a sudden, our brain transports us right back to the way we felt during a previous time we encountered that sight or sound or scent, when it caused us anxiety or pain or sadness. For me, the doorbell was what's often referred to as a trigger; it was like a shortcut for my brain straight back to a years-old trauma, even though I knew that trauma was long in the past.

There still isn't any hard science around how triggers are formed; all we know is that when the brain is triggered, it feels like being traumatized all over again. And as much as we may try to remind ourselves that we are not reliving the trauma, being triggered is not a rational response that can respond to logic and reason. As much as I knew the doorbell didn't pose any sort of threat now, that didn't really factor into my body's response.

Once I realized what was happening, though, I took some measures to deal with it. We put a sign out front asking delivery people to just leave packages on the front porch without ringing the doorbell (easier with dogs anyway). When we were expecting visitors, we told them to text when they arrived and we'd meet them at the door. And gradually, over time (and, again, with a lot of therapy), my trauma response diminished, to the point where I may now get a little flutter of anxiety at the doorbell, but it doesn't send me into full-on panic mode anymore.

What is a trigger/content warning?

Obviously, I have a point in telling this story, and that is that I'm a strong proponent of trigger warnings (sometimes referred to as "content warnings," which have a lot of overlap but aren't the same thing; I'll explain in a minute) when it comes to art, whether that art is visual, auditory, or literary. A trigger warning is a list of elements that are included within something which could potentially provoke a trauma response. The intent is so that folks who know their trauma triggers can make an informed choice about whether and how to engage with that thing.

Now, a trigger is not the same thing as a preference. Content warnings often are spoken of synonymously with trigger warnings, but aren't entirely the same, since content warnings tend to also take preference into account. For example, You Shouldn't Be Here includes a romantic subplot, including a closed-door (otherwise known as fade-to-black or non-explicit) sexual encounter between consenting adults. That sort of content is likely not going to provoke a trauma response in most people, but there may be some folks out there who would simply prefer not to read books with any sexual content whatsoever, or who may wish to gauge the appropriateness of the book for younger readers. So I would not include that as a trigger warning, but I may include it as a content warning.

That said, the word "warning" does tend to carry a negative connotation with it, and there are many authors (myself included) who will not include all of the topics that some people may not wish to read about in their content warnings. For example, all of my books contain characters from marginalized backgrounds, including characters from marginalized racial backgrounds, marginalized sexual orientations, and marginalized gender identities. I'm not going to "warn" potential readers about this (other than in contexts like this newsletter, where I can discuss this topic in a way that makes it clear I do not consider these things deserving of a "warning"), because in my opinion, I would rather someone get mad at me because I included non-white characters in my books (yes, this has happened) than get hurt because I implied their identity was a negative or inappropriate thing requiring me to warn others away.

Certain subject matter or themes make me cranky. Am I triggered?

There's been a bit of a trend for a while of folks calling things "triggering" when what they really mean is "I don't like this." And look, it's fine to not like something, but unless you're experiencing a trauma response, you're not being "triggered." You just don't like it.

This attitude of confusing trigger warnings with preference may seem harmless, but it's not. It winds up diluting the impact of trauma in people's lives, equating trauma responses with just being picky or emotionally fragile. This sort of thinking can lead to joke trigger warnings, or overly broad trigger warnings, both of which perpetuate the idea that triggers are silly little things that most "normal" people don't need, while also making the warnings themselves useless for survivors of actual trauma.

For example: something I've seen numerous times is something akin to "TW: Awful people." It feels kind of like a flippant wink to folks who get annoyed by people being awful, but this tells actual trauma survivors absolutely nothing about whether they need to avoid this thing or not. It's just too broad. In what way are people being awful? Are they being racist? Violent? Cruel to animals? Some types of awfulness may be triggering to certain individuals, while others wouldn't be, even though it all falls under the umbrella of "awful." For a trigger warning to be beneficial, it needs to be specific.

It's a hard thing to understand when you haven't experienced yourself, which is probably why it's so common to joke about triggers, or claim to be "triggered" when you merely find something off-putting. And honestly, if you've never experienced a trauma big enough to create a trigger reaction in your brain, that's great. Because trauma responses are no fun, and those of us who experience them tend to wish we could make them go away.

People do not choose to be triggered, just as they don't choose to be traumatized. Having triggers is not a sign of weakness or stupidity. It's not something that one can just "grow a thicker skin" in order to avoid, nor something anyone can just decide to "get over." Yes, there are techniques for managing and, eventually, maybe even overcoming triggers, but they take a long time, a lot of effort, and often professional help. Maybe someday we'll understand our brains enough to be able to prevent or cure trauma triggers, but until then, the best we can do is learn to live with them.

Should content/trigger warnings be printed in books?

There's an ongoing debate in the publishing world about where the best place is for trigger and content warnings, or if these things are even necessary at all. I mean, if it says on the back cover that the book is about solving a murder, do people really need to be warned that there is violence and death inside? Won't they know to expect that simply based on the genre?

(As a sidebar, I find it interesting that this topic is so contentious in publishing, when in movies and video games and TV and even music, content warnings have been standard practice for ages. Just take a look at the MPAA rating next time you go to the movies; it will tell you what sort of content warranted the rating. Now, there's a whole other discussion to be had about how the MPAA assigns ratings to movies, but that's not really relevant here. All I'm saying is that there's precedent.)

But of course, triggers are about a lot more than just broad genre conventions. That murder book could also contain sexual assault, or emotional abuse, or animal cruelty. It could contain discussion of miscarriage, or an absentee parent, or extreme poverty. None of which may be immediately obvious from the book description. So even if some of the potential triggers are obvious even without the warnings, that probably doesn't account for many others that you wouldn't know about unless you read it—or someone told you.

However, whether or not to provide a trigger warning for your readers is just the tip of the iceberg. If you land on the side of yes (which I do, in case that wasn't obvious), you still need to figure out what goes in your warning, and where you're putting it. If it goes in the book itself, where should it be? On the back cover? On the flap copy? On the copyright page? On a page by itself, and if so, at the front of the book or the back?

Or should it go in the online description of the book, but not inside the physical book itself?

Or maybe it should go on the author's social media? Or maybe their website? Are trigger warnings spoilers? Should we hide them, so as not to spoil readers, or make them impossible to miss so that we don't inadvertently perpetuate harm?

I will be blunt: when it comes to traditional publishing, which is how my books are published, authors (or at least, authors who are not Mega Huge Deals) don't really get much say in this. Publishers have their own policies around what goes in and on their books and in their online listings, and while it never hurts to ask, there may also be very little room for negotiation.

Self-published authors have much more autonomy around this issue, and may include warnings anywhere they want. Even in multiple places, if they prefer!

For me, since my publisher declined my request to put any warnings inside the book or on the main listings, I've put them in other places, trying to make them as obvious as possible for any readers who may want to seek them out. First, the book-tracking website StoryGraph allows authors to submit a list of approved content warnings for each of their books, in addition to user-submitted warnings. They are now listed on the StoryGraph pages for I'll Stop the World and You Shouldn't Be Here. I've also added content warnings to the book descriptions on the respective Goodreads pages for my books.

I also have individual pages with detailed content warnings for each book on my website. These pages are not on the site header, but can be accessed easily from both of the books' individual pages, and from the FAQ.

And of course, I occasionally talk about content warnings on social media, during appearances, and in newsletters like this! Is it a perfect system? No, of course not (and it's also very possible I may have missed some common triggers in my own books; if you ever find this to be the case, please don't hesitate to let me know, and I'll be sure to update my warnings). But it's better than nothing, and I'm always open to suggestions on how to do it better.

Just please, don't ring my doorbell.