Read on Twitter
No looking at Goodreads or Amazon. Delete your Google Alert. Your publisher will pass on good news so don't go looking. Do all your events with friends. Find someone you can vent to on the phone so you don't do it on Twitter. Be as far into your next book as possible by pub day. https://twitter.com/LukeEpplin/status/1354897817702199309
You will like your book least in the months surrounding its release. A couple years after, you'll begin to feel very fondly toward it, like remembering an old friend. And the readers still finding it and reading it then will be your favorite readers.
You are not going to be able to generously read new fiction coming out in the same season as your own release, so develop a healthy obsession with a genre of older books for your pub year reading. 1970s pulp sci-fi, old spy thrillers, whatever. Trust me on this: it's a lifesaver.
Remember that almost nothing happens on pub day! Think how long it takes you to read most new books you buy: a week? A month? Six months? (Never?) Most readers, even your friends and family, won't be able to say anything other than "congrats" to you for at least that long.
Last thing! As an editor, I used to ask my writers what one thing would make their book feel like a success: a review in a certain place, a reading in a favorite venue, etc. Know what that is for you. Tell your team. You can't have it all. But maybe you can have that one thing.
