My wife’s book comes out next week. She’s been going hard promoting it. 30 odd podcasts and counting. Magazine articles. Instagram post after Instragram post. Substack after Substack.
She’s exhausted. Which makes sense. It takes a lot of energy to launch a book and absolutely nothing you do is guaranteed to work.
But why am I also tired?
I think something we rarely see in creative industries is what’s going on with artist’s “rock” or “support person”. I’m not talking about paid employees, but the spouses, close friends, partners, etc. who take on the psychological burden of the “front line” person. I know not everyone has a “rock”, but I think if you looked behind many successful artists, you would see someone there doing the cooking, the taxes, the grunt work work.
The rocks (oh god maybe that wasn’t a good choice of phrase), of which I am one, rarely get the glory, but are often just as susceptible to the fatigue and worry of the front line person. I am tired because, while Amie is out there on podcasts, speaking in front of thousands of people, spamming Instagram, I am tensed up, unable to influence anything.
She is able to act, I am only able to absorb and worry.
It’s a mountain of second hand vulnerability with none of the release of actually DOING something.
There’s no access to anxiety’s pressure valve: action.

We deserve to be at peace
Martha Beck, in the Way of Integrity, asks you what it feels like to say to yourself, “I deserve peace.”
Part of being “the rock”, or the support person in the relationship is, I often think it’s my job not to be at peace. It’s my job to make sure AMIE is at peace. Fuck myself.
I’m supposed to show up and, when Amie’s stressed, tell her it’s okay. When she’s tired, I clean the kitchen, I cook the dinner, I do the washing. I soothe her. I fight for HER peace, not my own.
And I like that. I like that role. I feel aligned when I do that. I am in Integrity.
But it’s also exhausting.
What I wouldn’t recommend you do
I like being the support person. I think we, as a culture, should have more respect for support people. We keep the rocket ships going up into orbit.
But as a support person you need to look after yourself too, so you can actually do what you need to do. You can’t fill from an empty cup. And often we try to expand our remit to things that are not just useless, but probably unhelpful and exhausting for you. Which makes you less likely to be able to play support. That’s usually things like checking up on sales metrics or monitoring industry “shoulds” or publisher expectations.
I wouldn’t recommend that stuff to anyone, supporter or frontliner. But particularly if you are a support person, I think these things are dangerous. They make you feel productive in the moment but are really just short term dopamine hits (or anxiety spikes).
I’m starting to realise that “knowing the facts” is really just a coping mechanism for me to feel like I have some influence over the book launch. One that backfires.
There’s nothing to really be done about the numbers. It’s like the stoics say, focus on what you can control.
Worrying about amazon rankings, and this will shock you, doesn’t improve your amazon ranking.
One of Amie’s great strengths is that she isn’t someone who would ever look up any of that information. She is a vibes person.
And that’s clearly the correct way to go about your book launch.
That’s not to say she doesn’t worry about pre-orders or attendance numbers at our tour events. It’s just that her only understanding of those things is through vibes.
What TO DO
This is what I’m going to focus on next time Amie has a big launch:
Keep your eye on the prize. Your job is to keep your front liner going, not to worry about everything that could go wrong.
Make sure you’re still living your own life. Keep up your projects. Do your regular job. This will stop you from becoming reliant on the front liner’s wins for your own sense of progress.
Monitor yourself for exhaustion and tiredness. Accept that you can’t always be the rock. Pushing aside your own fatigue will just lead to both of you being non-functional.
Remind yourself that simply by supporting the front liner, you’re doing your job. You don’t need to worry about outcomes. Just play your support role, and let them do their thing.
It mostly comes down to allowing yourself some peace. Just because you’re someone’s support person, doesn’t mean you have to take on all the stress.
Do what you can to support them, but try not to get sucked up into the world of competition and metrics. That world always sucks, but especially for support people who can often feel like they have no power to affect anything.
You have power to look after yourself and your front liner. That’s what’s important.
I know this is perhaps a niche and strange substack to write. Maybe most of you aren’t support people or don’t want to be. But I think it’s an important job and I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes of some of the challenges.
I also have an article for people, like me, whose partner has more ambition than them.
If you want to see me “rocking” in person, here are out tour dates:
USA EAST COAST
The BookMark Shoppe Brooklyn 11th March 2025 7pm - BUY TICKETS HERE
Head House Books, Philly, 13th March 2025 6:30pm - BUY TICKETS HERE
Taylor Co Books, Brooklyn, 14th March 2025 7:30pm - BUY TICKETS HERE (just scroll down the home page!)
UNITED KINGDOM
Morocco Bound Bookshop", 25th March - BUY TICKETS HERE
AMSTERDAM
Scheltema, 5th April, 2pm - BUY TICKETS HERE!
BERLIN, SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE!
Please stay tuned. Should be mid-April.
To everyone who commented, messaged me, or spoke to me in private at one of our US events about this article. Thank you so much. I am so grateful for you. I feel like I've left it too long to reply individually. But thank you for seeing me.
I got no words 🥹