Anna Rollins: Pacing Yourself When You're Marketing a Book

How to launch a book when you have three kids and not a lot of time

Anna Rollins is one of those people I wouldn’t know if I wasn’t on Substack, but now that our paths have crossed so many different times, she feels like a real-life friend. She truly gets what Nebula Notebook is about, and she’s an incredible mentor and teacher for writers who want to expand their bylines and navigate the publishing industry without burning out. I asked her to share how she’s marketing her new book, and I think you’ll find this guest post from Anna truly helpful whenever it’s your turn to market your book.

Heidi

---

The draft of my first traditionally published book, Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, was due on February 1st – or, the day before I gave birth to my third baby. After years of querying, I’d finally signed with an agent: days later, I found out I was expecting. I kept the pregnancy quiet in the beginning. I was on submission during my first trimester, and I checked my agent’s editorial spreadsheet in between nursing my nausea. My book sold during my second trimester, and despite the brain fog and all-day fatigue, I was eager to revise my manuscript before its due date. Before my baby’s due date.

The timeline, though complicated, had its perks: both the book and the baby served as a nice distraction from the other. When I was worried about ultrasounds, I shifted my focus to my book’s contract instead. When I felt concern about how I would balance publicity and new motherhood, I rearranged the nursery.

I’ve found these sorts of distractions helpful in other parts of my creative life. Even though early motherhood and writing might seem like competing priorities, with adequate support and resources, you can make them work in your favor. In fact, as I’ve been preparing for Famished’s release on December 9th of this year, I believe that being the mom of three children has helped me pace myself during the book marketing process.

Set Limits

One way to pace yourself is to give yourself a constraint. A baby is a wonderful constraint. When you’re on a strict three-hour nursing schedule, it’s easier to not hyperfixate on the details of a task and just do the darn thing, because otherwise your breasts will explode.

Though babies eventually wean and the physical constraints of motherhood may diminish, they grow in other areas. My children’s soccer practice can serve as a constraint. Or their thirty minutes of screen time. Or their twenty minutes of independent piano practice. As a mom, the clock is always counting down. This, if leveraged thoughtfully, can work in my favor.

Prioritize

When I’ve only booked twenty hours of childcare in a week, I have to prioritize my marketing tasks. These activities can be neverending, after all. There is no limit to the amount of collaborating and engaging and content making I can do on social media. So I have to consider what gives me the best rate of return. My time is money – childcare isn’t cheap – and this helps as I make decisions about what is worth my attention and talent.

Focus

Finally, my pivot into becoming a professional author involved a lot of multi-tasking. As I was building my writing platform, I was also working full-time as an instructor and administrator in higher education. I had two children. There was a pandemic going on, and my husband was an essential worker.

But because I felt an internal calling and drive, I wrote compulsively and published often. This was necessary for my pivot – but it was not sustainable. It wore on my mental health, and it depleted my reserves, leaving me with little to give to my other relationships (much less allowing much margin for play or fun or pleasure).

I have since simplified my life (and my finances). I’ve stepped away from teaching full-time, and I’ve embraced freelance writing and coaching as my career. In doing this, I’ve also made an effort to do far less multi-tasking. My nervous system (as well as my family) is grateful for this.

Juggle When It Makes Sense

When I combine writing and parenting, I try to make sure that the work is mutually beneficial: habit stacking (which involves two complementary activities) rather than multi-tasking (which involves two competing activities). I might involve my children in helping me brainstorm narratives for potential kids’ books. Or maybe I’ll ask for their opinion on a headline. But for the most part, I try to maintain a more intentional separation between work and family life. This boundary has been so critical in helping me maintain my psychological health in the book marketing process.

---

Anna Rollins is the author of Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, a groundbreaking debut memoir examining the rhyming scripts of diet culture and evangelical purity culture. It comes out December 9, 2025. You can also find her on Substack where she generously shares what she knows about pitching and writing personal essays.

---