Happy? One Week of The Understory

Fake books, what went wrong, the bitter and the sweet

A few years ago, a friend released a book about dark nights of the soul the same week their family had not one but two serious medical hospitalizations. Another friend released her book about mental health the same week her kid attempted on his life. Yet another friend released a book about staying in and loving the church during the same month their family left their longtime church amidst a split.

It takes about two+ years for a book to make it from conception to publication and ten-thousand things can change for an author in that span. One thing, though, that is certain to not change, is the fact that we will be called upon to live the words we wrote years earlier, usually amidst less than ideal circumstances.

The Understory is a book about grief, resilience, being here, but it’s also a book about holding things in tension, seeing value and even good in different perspectives, competing truths, and making peace with what has fallen apart. I’m still making peace with all those realities in my life on a daily basis. The past six months Nate has been without a job and it’s been hard, but also, it’s been a good time for me to face that I not only contribute to our family income, I actually make enough to support our family.¹ The past six months we have known we will be leaving our home and village here, but also, we have no idea where we will be moving or when. The past four years we have not had a church home that feels like home, but also, somehow, miraculously, God has sustained us.

The bitter and the sweet always go hand in hand in life. There is almost never a time when it is all bitter or all sweet (and I’m wildly suspect of those who claim one or the other).

This past week was more of the same. All week I’ve been reading reviews of the book (which I don’t normally do!), comments, seeing your photos and reading your captions. I’ve been overcome with joy by the amount of fellow authors who actually love The Understory and aren’t just doing the old “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.” I’ve been flabbergasted. Sweet.

But while those of you who preordered the book from independent sellers, local bookstores or the publisher received your beautiful books—the books you expected, the books you paid for, the books I promised you—those of you who ordered from Amazon (as I encouraged you to because as an author, we’re caught between a rock and a hard place in those first few weeks of our book’s release), either have not received your books, and won’t until late June or even late July, or you have received knock-off copies (copies Amazon printed via KDP). Bitter.

I’ve been trying to make peace with this release all week, literally, since last Tuesday morning when the Amazon page for The Understory said in big, bold letters Out of Stock. If there’s anything an author doesn’t want to hear on release day it’s that (I mean, unless it’s because they sold through their stock, which I’m not sure was the problem here). I described it to someone like spending two years planning a huge surprise birthday party, and then everyone shows up, but there’s no presents, no balloons, no food platters, no cakes, no favors, just a bunch of empty handed people standing around wondering why they showed up. I felt apologetic. I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt embarrassed. I felt like instead of spending the week celebrating, I was going to be spending the week trying to figure out just what went wrong here.

I promised my agent on Friday that I was taking the weekend off from thinking about it and I mostly did. I read The Seed Keeper and almost finished The Covenant of Water (both are great). I watched a documentary and a movie. Nate and I played some board games and we spent a lot of time out on the porch reading. The weather was perfect all weekend and I just tried to enjoy it all. But the back of my mind was pulsing with the letdown of the week.

My writer friends and I often joke that we will have to live the messages of our books, usually pretty potently during the early days of the book’s release. I don’t think it’s Murphy’s Law or coincidence or karma or anything other than that is the nature of life, especially a life we intentionally choose to reflect upon. Wasn’t it Kierkegaard who said, “Life can only be lived forward but can only be understood backward?” or something like that. Some people can go through their whole lives not reflecting on what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, but I’m not sure a writer can. We’re compelled to reflect. We’re compelled to inspect. We’re compelled to pull apart the strands of connective tissue that make up the muscular life, the pulsing, beating, breathing life. We’re obsessed with it in some ways.

Buechner wrote, “Welcome to the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” We writers have always been interested in the space in-between, the “both/andness of life,”² the liminal spaces, the kairos spaces—where something immeasurable is happening and we just need to have courage to look right at it, to not look away, to trust something good is still afoot.

That’s where I am this week, friends. I’m so intensely proud of this book. I lived its message as I wrote it. I have told the truth. I worked hard to give it a beautiful cover, soft to the touch, a debossed title that was “under” the tree, creamy pages with good weight to them, a size that fits right in your hands. I wanted to give you not just beautiful words but a beautiful experience. And, for a variety of reasons, none of which are in my control, that isn’t happening for many of you. And I’m gutted about it. It’s terrible. But I won’t look away. I’m no longer afraid of seeing the beauty alongside the broken.

If you are wondering, “What can I do?” or “What would help you?”

One thing everyone can do is order an extra copy of The Understory from your preferred independent bookseller—really anyone who isn’t Amazon. Give it to a friend, save it for a rainy day. It will help make up for the glut of fake books that have been sold and ensure more copies of the real book get out there. Here’s some booksellers I recommend:

• Message Shawn Smucker at Nooks. 15% off The Understory, he’ll drop one in the mail for you.

• Order from my friends at The Bookshelf.

• Order from Tattered Cover in Denver.

• Order from Bookshop.org and benefit small sellers everywhere.

• Order directly from my publisher, where you can get two copies for 30% off.

How do you know if you received a knock-off? Good question.

There are a few giveaways. If you open the front cover of the real book, you will see the debossing clearly (image below), you’ll be able to feel it. If that’s not there, you’ve got a fake. Another way to tell is the inside back page (the other side of the page my bio is on) will have printing on it. The real book has no printing on that page (as seen below in the video). If you received a knock-off copy of The Understory, would you fill out this form asap so we can replace your book at no cost to you?

The inside cover of the real book. The fake won’t have the imprinted title.

1. I’ve gaslit my own self into believing that what I do has no measurable impact for years.

2. This is what a friend and I called it a few weeks ago when I called to ask if she would lead the trip to Greece in my absence, my sorrow leading to her joy.