The Irony of a Supergirl Launching a “Supergirl” Book by Guest Author Liz Funk

We’re excited to welcome guest author Liz Funk to the ball today. She is the author of Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis
of Overachieving Girls, a new book about the pressure on young women to be perfect, published by Simon and Schuster’s Touchstone imprint. She has written for USA Today, Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post, CosmoGIRL!, Girls’ Life, and New York magazine, among many other publications. She blogs at her web-site, lizfunk.com/blog and she sits on the advisory board for ypulse.com

How to Get Ready for a Book Launch:

1. Get roots touched up at hair salon, get acrylic nails put on (and then re-learn how to type on BlackBerry), go tanning twice a week at least, and pay attention while having makeup done professionally the first few times to get a sense of how to do TV makeup

2. Figure out what liquids are essentials to carry on plane flights; figure out how to stuff an entire makeup collection into a 1-quart plastic bag to do makeup in airplane bathroom while en route to a college lecture

3. Research magazines, radio shows, blogs and online zines that pertain to your book. E-mail them to tell them about your book, and then e-mail them again.

4. Make yourself completely available for any TV interviews, phoners, and e-mail interviews.

5. Find time to blog regularly.

In short, getting ready for a book launch often requires going on overdrive, missing some sleep, and missing a few episodes of your favorite weekly TV show. Now, the kicker is that my book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls is a non-fiction look at the lives of Supergirls—overachieving young women who struggle to be simultaneously pretty, accomplished, well-liked, and organized… and make it all look effortless. In my book, I suggest that today’s young women need to slow down, develop a sense of self-worth, and stop busying themselves so they can feel like they accomplished something at the end of the day (because they’ve already accomplished something by just being themselves!). It’s ironic, because there is so much overachieving and so much hard work that goes into promoting a book about overachieving young women who work too hard. Sometimes it makes me feel hypocritical, but usually it just makes me laugh.

Also funny is that I’ve been writing so much publicity copy and doing so many e-mail interviews that when I type the word “eating,” my hands type the word “disorder” regardless of whether I’m talking about bulimic teenagers for an interview or gchating my friend and mentioning that I want Thai food for lunch. Naturally, when I write “super,” I can’t help but capitalize it and type the word “girl” afterwards.

The good part is that a book launch—especially a first book launch—is exhilarating. It’s so satisfying to see a book that’s been in the works for two-plus years to finally come to fruition, and the being tired is a good tired! (Similarly, I maintain that having a first book is not unlike having a first baby.)

In an age where authors can’t be secluded artists who avoid the public in their New Hampshire fortresses, we’re all entrepreneurs promoting our brand and promoting our books. Luckily, it’s also very fun to self-promote full time, and it’s also extremely fulfilling to get the first letters from readers and supportive friends who read your book and liked it.

I’d love to chat more, but I ironically have to get back to working on my launch!