On the offchance that someone might be interested, I’m doling out my book Within the Box one chapter at a time on Substack, with new chapters dropping every Wednesday. I’m hoping it’s entertaining and also that it’s less imposing than agreeing to read a whole book. Also that if someone starts reading and thinks “hey, this is actually good!”, they could draw other people in. And I’d be ridiculously happy to get feedback on a chapter by chapter basis!
First two chapters (miniature intro chapters) are up as a single post.
You need to think about how you’re pitching this book. Your post here gives no clue as to what sort of book this is. I’ve read the first chapter, and I still don’t know.
Write a blurb.
Look up similar books and look at theirs. Write one for yours. Use that both as your hook and as a way of signalling to readers that it might be their sort of thing.
That said, having read the first chapter I have one criticism of the text itself, which is that I don’t get much if any internal thought process from the pov character. They have an argument on the phone with their parents (and why over the phone? You lose your chance to describe their body language). But you don’t get a sense of what the character’s feeling. Are they resigned? Frustrated? Do they actually have issues with being flaky and doing drugs which they’re not admitting to themselves?