Today ONLY! (I'm s-o-o-o excited for this!)

There's a cosmic conspiracy of second chances afoot...catch this one today only.

Happy full moon, friends.

Let’s cut right to the chase (article below!):

Today ONLY you can get the Letting Magic In ebook on Amazon for only $2.99!(you can also follow this link for the print version which is not on sale)

Who doesn’t love a sale? I always snag ebooks I’ve been considering, but unsure about, when the price drops. If Letting Magic In is in this category for you, this is the perfect moment to download it. And if you’ve read and enjoyed the book, use the sale as an excuse to share Letting Magic In with your friends and family (hint, hint).

But this moment means more to me than just a sale, this is a second chance.

It’s been a bit of a rough year with Letting Magic In.

Despite glowing reviews and heartwarming emails from readers, sales have been less than spectacular. According to the publishing industry, this one’s a fail— a book my writing career needs to “recover from…”

…Which is especially painful because I thought this was going to be my breakout book. Given how it’s turned out, I feel sheepish reporting that I had visions of Eat, Pray, Love- and Wild- style grandeur. Of Reese Witherspoon picking it up and Jenna Bush shouting about it from the rooftops. It never occurred to me this would be a book from which I would need “to recover.”

(The authors reading this are chuckling, I’m sure. They know how rare these types of accolades are, how difficult it is for a book to make that sort of splash. They know that memoir rarely hits big unless it’s written by a celebrity or made into a movie. They probably think it’s cute that I thought, because I wrote it like a novel, that fiction readers would hop on over and give it a go.)

It’s now been a bit over a year since Letting Magic In was released. In that time, the dissonance between the reviews and the book’s sales has created a fractious fog in my brain. My mind sheers off the sales track. I feel scattered and unsure of what I created. Is the book good or bad or somewhere in between? Is it well written or simply dreck? Are the slow sales a writing issue, a story telling problem, a cover conundrum, or a lack of description in the subtitle? Or maybe the marketing’s at fault. Or the category— some people just don’t think of themselves as memoir readers.

I’ve banged through these questions many times, wondering what I could have done differently.

But, as my agent reminds me whenever I start chasing my tail, a book’s success is an unpredictable mash-up of timing and luck…. Which Letting Magic In just didn’t have.

So this year has, unexpectedly, come to feel like a crossroads.

I’ve had to have more than one honest conversation with myself about my career path, my passions, and how I am going to be making an income for the next decade. I’ve considered my definition of success, and the ways in which I measure my self worth. I’ve looked at what types of writing will make me a living and what passion projects might need to fall into the hobby category. I’ve thought about compromises, the ones I’m willing to make and the ones I’m not.

The track I thought I was on— the one where I write books until I drop over dead— has been shown to have some precarious footing and more than a few sand traps. How do I want to handle that?

In asking these questions and considering my options, I’ve come to a mental place I first stumbled upon during the time period I wrote about in Letting Magic In: it’s a place from which anything and everything is possible. But, to be in that very sacred space, you have to admit that you don’t know what comes next.

I’m a planner and a future tracker. I enjoy crafting my own life. It feels like the greatest form of magic.

But there’s another kind of magic, a more yin expression, that demands quiet, the willingness to build a campfire at the crossroads, roast some marshmallows, and wait till the wind blows the scent of change to you. It requires you tune into your intuition and stop pushing forward.

It also asks you to put everything on the table because, when you don’t know what comes next, you can’t say which bits and bobs of your current life will support your future and which will need to be shucked. My career? Maybe it will shift. Our house? Maybe I’ll sell it. I’m holding on loosely because, when I’m willing to let it all go, change is easy and the crossroads is an adventure.

It’s strange and kind of wonderful to be in this space with a partner. What are you willing to let go? What compromises are you willing to make? I ask over and over again. He doesn’t enjoy these conversations as much as I do but I get enough info to know that he’s sitting next to me, brandishing his stick lined with gently browned marshmallows.

This was all on my mind when I chatted with my assistant about the happy serendipity of this full moon coinciding with the Amazon sale of Letting Magic In (the date for which Amazon chooses without my input).

It’s so good! she said. Especially because it’s the second full moon in Capricorn. It’s a second chance.

Wait, what?

Julie, my assistant, is also an astrologer. So she tracks things like two full moons, a month a part (June 21 and July 21), both occurring in the same sign. She also remembers things like the fact that my rising sign is Capricorn.

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, the planet of hard work and discipline, of obstacles and challenges. And the full moon always brings things into the light.

This is the second time Saturn’s obstacles will be illuminated in a month’s span. It’s a fresh look at what hard work has wrought and the challenges still circling around it.

Is this Amazon sale the book’s second chance? That seems like a lot of pressure to put on a one day sale (but I do hope those of you who already enjoy my writing— heck, you’ve gotten this far in the article!) will give it a try.

So, for me, I’m looking at the bigger picture. The picture in which the book is woven into the fabric of the crossroads I’m sitting at. I’m curious what this full moon will illuminate that I haven’t noticed— or wanted to notice— before.

What obstacles and challenges are alive in your life? Do they look any different in the light of this second full moon in Capricorn? Are you feeling braver about facing them? What questions are you asking yourself as you sit at the crossroads?

You know I love a good share in the comments!

xx Maia

P.S. If you’re in Asheville, I’d love to see you on Saturday August 10 from 2-4pm at The Hop on Merrimon Avenue. I’ll have The Night School for Young Mystics with me and will be signing books and sharing temporary tattoos from the Wild Wisdom Tattoo book that comes out later in August.