In 16 days, my novel Let Me Be Your Ghost comes out. That’s the good news. The bad news is for the free book I’ve been tucking into every preorder, because at midnight Pacific on Tuesday, November 17, it goes back in the drawer.
So I did what any serious literary author does 16 days before launch. I made my novel a grocery store sale tag. Buy one, get one free, like a family-size bag of tortilla chips.
The deal is simple: preorder one copy of Let Me Be Your Ghost, in any format, from any retailer. Upload your receipt on my site. I’ll send you How to Write a Memoir, a whole second book I’ve never published, in PDF and EPUB. It usually lands in your inbox within minutes:
🛒 What’s in the bag
Let Me Be Your Ghost is my romantic thriller. Lola Whitman ghostwrites memoirs for powerful men and feeds their secrets to the FBI. One last book buys her freedom. Then her final target, billionaire Ezekiel Crane, finds her first, and wanting him breaks the one rule that keeps her alive. I first wrote it as a TV pilot in 2017, took it into meetings with producers, and made research trips to the Bay Area for the fog.
How to Write a Memoir is the real tradecraft Lola would be using, with fewer billionaires and more banana bread. It’s the playbook from my memoir ghostwriting work, for writing your own life story or someone else’s (names changed, NDAs intact), and I’ve never published it. Preordering the novel is the only way to read it.
If you’ve been reading along here on Fridays, you’re 22 chapters in, and you already know whether you want the finished book. The book is the full story, revised and polished, in one place you can hold.
🧾 The Founding Member bonus
This is my favorite gift, mostly because of the math.
Preorder 10 print copies of Let Me Be Your Ghost, which is about $220 (give or take depending on taxes and shipping) in paperbacks or $330 in hardcovers, and I’ll comp you a full year of Founding membership here on 💡 Sutoscience. A Founding year is normally $550. It comes with our monthly Substack Lab calls, where we look at real Substacks together and you get live feedback on yours, plus the 6 Week Substack Sprint and every essay, chapter and behind-the-scenes post.
Yes, the books cost less than the membership. Yes, I did that on purpose.
And look at the calendar: The book comes out November 18, and ten paperbacks make ten December gifts for your book club, your writing group, and the sister-in-law who only reads thrillers on airplanes. That’s your holiday shopping done in one checkout, with a Founding year on top.
🎤 The big one, for teams
Preorder 50 or more print copies and you get everything above, plus a private session with me: one-on-one coaching on writing, Substack or book marketing, or a talk for your team, institution or organization. My consulting time bills at $1,000 an hour, and fifty paperbacks run about $1,100, and you also get the Founding Membership at $550/year, so you get $1,600+ of value (not including the books themselves!).
⏳ The fine print for the buy-one-get-one
Preorder by midnight Pacific on Tuesday, November 17, the night before the book comes out. The free e-book copy of How to Write a Memoir comes with preorders only.
Any retailer counts: Amazon (the paperback is here), Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, or The Ripped Bodice, the romance bookstore, if you shop indie. In the UK, the Kindle edition is on Amazon.co.uk.
One free book per receipt. The How to Write a Memoir ebook comes by email within minutes. I activate Founding years myself within 2 business days, and I reach out personally about private sessions.
Already preordered and never claimed? Upload your receipt here. Uploads stay open through November 30 for on-time preorders.
Preorders are how a new book tells the store algorithms it deserves attention on launch day. I don’t have a publishing house buying me a front table. I have you, and a sale tag.
Go put one book in your cart and the other in your inbox.
See you in the story. 🌉
-Amy