Up from the grave she arose

heretic is getting a paperback!

‍

Written by Jeanna Kadlec

Sep 04, 2025

‍

My first book Heretic, newly subtitled A Queer Revolt Against Evangelicalism, Empire, and the Lies We Are Sold (a subtitle brainstormed in the astrology for writers Discord!), comes out in paperback September 23rd. It has been a long, difficult road to a paperback, something which the vast majority of hardcovers do not receive these days.

Also, I’m excited to officially announce that I’ll be doing a paperback launch with my fellow Red State-born ex-evangelical Casey McQuiston (Red, White, & Royal Blue, The Pairing, One Last Stop, I Kissed Shara Wheeler), here in NYC on October 8th at 7pm. RSVP here — it’s gonna fill fast!

This newsletter is going to be about the tribulations of trad publishing and the incredible people who made the paperback happen. It takes a village, but ultimately, the book is your baby. If I have learned anything (especially with Harper not doing any promo for this paperback), it’s that if we authors don’t promote ourselves, no one will. So this is the part where, before we dive in, I explicitly state that if even 1/4 of newsletter subscribers pre-ordered the paperback, we would be in striking distance of major bestseller lists — and issue a resounding message to the Big 5 about the importance of queer stories and those that reckon with the terror of the Religious Right.

order a signed copy for 18.99

barnes and noble members get 25% off!

In this newsletter, we’re going to do some backstory: on me as a writer, a cliff notes of the trials Heretic went through before coming out the first time (every book has its own version of this!), and the process of getting to a paperback.

Before I was an astrologer, I was a writer.

And long before I ever explored spirituality outside the confines of a high-control religion, I knew that I specifically wanted to write books. My first stories I have record of (in that my mother kept the Composition Books I filled up) were about tigers. When I wrote and illustrated these stories of the secret lives of big cats and magical portals in the zoo, I was six years old — which was around the age I figured out that there was a person who behind the books I read every night before bed.

Not every author has been writing their whole life. But for those of us who have, there is a particular joy that comes from having always been able to find oneself on the page. I’m not the only one who found relief when Joan Didion articulated “I write to find out what I am thinking.”

Which is to say, my first book Heretic— which, after a lifetime of writing fiction, was quite unexpectedly a hybrid memoir (which I hope the new subtitle more accurately reflects) — was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, in that way that such peaks are both longed-for fulfillments and bright beginnings. Suddenly, I was on the other side of that magical portal. My book was on shelves. I was firmly in the world of authors.

But longtime readers of this newsletter will know that it was not so magical as that. I will not beleaguer you with the long-form history, but suffice it to say:

• Heretic failed to sell its first time on submission, but sold at auction for 6-figures the second time to the wonder woman that is Jenny Xu, then at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Then, about six months after contract signing, HMH was bought by HarperCollins, which meant that all in-progress HMH book contracts were also bought out by HarperCollins. While HMH became the Mariner imprint at Harper, Jenny and her authors were moved over to the main Harper imprint.
• Roughly a week after Heretic came out in the world in October 2022 (midwifed by a genuinely extraordinary team — Jenny, Liz Velez, Kelly Doyle!), Harper union employees went on strike. Harper, in their corporate greed, tried to break the strike through the holidays; it didn’t resolve until February 2023. Most of my team, most notably my incredible publicist, was on strike.
• Most strike books were ultimately written off as losses. Publishing is only ever looking ahead; they aren’t promoting their back catalogue or books that came out in difficult times (just look at the 2020 COVID books).

This was the context I understood my book in when, earlier this year, I began noticing that not only did bookshop.org list Heretic as “backordered” — the sales page had disappeared altogether. I emailed my agent. I was concerned not only because a book wasn’t available at a store — bookstores get to decide what they have on their shelves! — but also because the bookshop.org inventory, like most indie bookstores’ online order inventory, is pulled directly from Ingram, the industry-wide database that links to a book’s warehouse availability. If a book isn’t available through Ingram, and has previously been traditionally distributed, we have a problem. My agent and I reached out to the editor who had inherited Heretic after Jenny left for Atria at Simon & Schuster (where she is doing f-ing amazing work, btw!). Crickets.

That Heretic had gone “out of print” was ultimately confirmed weeks later by Lexi, the queer owner of my beloved indie Astoria Bookshop (where my wife Meg and I got married), who, when I was in for my weekly browse, pulled me aside and showed me how she was trying to order more copies of Heretic, and did I know that it was being listed by Harper as out of print? (She even emailed Harper on my behalf during our “what happens now” emails — support your local indies! They actually love authors and advocate to publishers on our behalf! Amazon could NEVER!).

my beloved friend mecca woods, an astrologer you should know about! married us in january at astoria bookshop amongst a small group of chosen family and local friends

Lexi’s affirmation that our suspicions were correct resulted in emails and calls with my agent. Still getting crickets from Harper, I made some Instagram stories about the situation. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s unprofessional to take publishing issues on main when you have exhausted all other avenues. Liz Velez, who had been Jenny’s editorial assistant but was now an acquiring editor (and the only remaining member of the Heretic team) at Harper, saw my stories and DM’d me immediately to take charge of the situation.

In the early days of Liz’s involvement, which moved long-stalled conversations along, my agent and I speculated that this would ultimately become a matter of me requesting my rights back — something you can do when your book is technically out of print (e-book and audio editions do not constitute “being in print”). I learned that there are two major kinds of “out of print”: you sell through a print run and aren’t picked up for a second, or your book is remaindered (aka: leftover copies are pulped to make room for other books in the warehouse).

Heretic falling into the latter category helped our case, to be sure. But it was strange — having just been on submission with Astrology for Artists — to learn that I had actually sold through a print run (?!), small though it was. I’d been told repeatedly that my sales were dismal. While no one outside of the house knows the exact metric by which this is measured, I do know that only selling a few thousand copies of a book you got a $150,000 advance for is not good math. Interesting, though, to have learned that Harper (which again: was not the original publisher) had only printed a few thousand copies in the first place, that there were, in fact, only that many that could be sold. It was unsurprising, given their own low-level investment in the book, that they still measured the metric of success against what HMH had excitedly offered. C’est la vie.

This is to say, my agent and I did not expect Harper, which is very particular with the books acquired by Harper Perennial (the paperback division that is itself a separate imprint, the only such organization in the Big 5), to offer a paperback as a compromise; after all, they didn’t the first time. But — surprise! Harper (aka Liz) ultimately came to us suggesting a paperback.

I want to especially praise, thank, and shout out Liz Velez, who has in the last few months personally stewarded Heretic through its Descent of Inanna-like resurrection, managing a subtitle and consequent cover change and paperback redesign. Truly, this paperback would not have happened without them, and if you have the good fortune to ever do a book with Liz, you will be in such good hands.

It is strange, to re-visit and be thrust back into promotion mode for a book that you thought was already out in the world living its best life. No doubt there are still more lessons for me to learn about rot and compost and what grows out of it as Heretic finds a second life, hopefully on a bookshelf near you.

There are a lot of people to thank made this re-launch possible:

• Liz Velez, obviously. An editor to watch! An editor to work with!
• Lexi, the owner of Astoria Bookshop, for literally emailing with Harper on my behalf to prove there were bookstores who still wanted to stock the book. If you want a signed or customized copy of Heretic, pre-order through Astoria Bookshop! Also, you’ll be supporting a queer woman-owned bookstore that loves their local authors!
• Hannah Levy of The Rebis, who gave me 10 volunteer hours and brainstormed publicity ideas, edited pitches, AND made me a gorgeous spreadsheet for my paperback publicity efforts.
• Cassie Mannes Murray of Pine State Publicity, who generously gave me an hour-long consultation full of uber-useful feedback and advice (hire her and the Pine State team for your indie publicity!).
• The astrology for writers Discord, who supported me in the early grief of this journey and who rallied as It Got Better, collectively brainstorming a new subtitle (!!) and doing their own promotional efforts Where They Live. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

If you already have a copy, or don’t have the budget for new books right now, please consider doing one of the following — word of mouth is THEEEEE most powerful way to sell books, and each one of us can do that!

• Snap a pic of your copy of Heretic, or yap on video about why you loved it, and post it to social media! Feel free to tag me! Videos especially are WILDLY helpful!
• Leave a rating or review on Goodreads or Amazon (that really does help boost Amazon search results, unfortunately)!
• Request it from your local library!
• Recommend it in your group text, your local Facebook neighborhood group, your company’s #am-reading Slack! Word! Of! Mouth!

And if you have a podcast or newsletter, or write for a media outlet, and think Heretic and its Too Relevant To Current Events themes would be a good fit, please let me know in a comment, or reach out to jeannakadlecauthor at gmail.