Reflections in a Barnes & Noble

I’d been warned by plenty of experienced writers that a debut book release is rarely the big, cinematic moment you imagine. They were right. Instead of a triumphant launch day, I’ve had delayed ship dates, understocking issues, and even a little product misplacement for good measure. There wasn’t really a “release day” at all—just this slow, stretched-out process where the book sort of…dribbled into the market. That process is still ongoing and will continue for the foreseeable future.

The only real “celebration” I had was taking my family out to dinner, which honestly was all I wanted anyway. Quiet, simple, and grounding.

But I cannot undersell one particular moment: walking into Barnes & Noble and seeing my book on the shelf for the very first time. It’s an image every aspiring author carries around for years—maybe decades. So many years of work, late nights and early mornings; long stretches repurposing the National Defense University library to my own ends, ends which I hope will ultimately deliver far more value to my country’s protection than my own (trivial, in the end) individual education.

And there it is, real and next to me in the Military History section. It is not Military History.

No big launch needed, and I don’t particularly care what shelf it goes on. That’s all I needed, and we’re done here.