Waiting…

With my book off to beta readers I’m finding myself with a lot of free time on my hands. The hours I would spend writing, rewriting, reading, revising, and procrastinating have turned into a lot of spinning of wheels. I know there are several things that will need to be done to have everything ready for publication, but I’m having a super hard time doing any of them.

Today I decided to work on my author presence. I played around with an email signature, a logo (what do you think) and looked at Mailchimp again to see if I can actually figure out the newsletter thing. I’m still lost. I only have five followers (hi, Mom!), so it’s difficult to think of something to send out on a regular basis. Right now subscribers just get these posts sent to their inbox.

My ultimate goal is to have this book ready to submit for self-publishing on August 1st. That doesn’t mean that will be my release date. I don’t think. While I do have one published piece, it was a collaboration with a bunch of seasoned self-published writers and I just turned everything over to them. I’ve got a friend that I can ask questions, but sometimes I don’t know what questions to ask. I just know that I don’t know what I’m doing.

Sage is helping, of course. And considering I’m paying her you’d think I’d feel comfortable contacting her with questions as they come up. But my anxious brain tells me that I shouldn’t bother her and I should know or look for the answers myself.

I did contact my editor friend to look into lining her up to proofread the book once I’ve used the beta feedback to revise again. That will be another period of waiting. Waiting is stinking hard.

My children have asked me why I’m self-publishing instead of sending my book to traditional publishers. The truth? I don’t think I have thick enough skin. Rejection hits me hard. And as much as I’d love to think that my work is good enough to be snatched up immediately, I know that’s not how traditional publishing works. And I’ve read that many publishers won’t even look at authors that don’t already have an audience. Rejection might not have anything at all to do with the writing or story, but that doesn’t mean it won’t absolutely gut me.

I’ve also seen many writers use a pen name for books they self-publish so that it doesn’t hurt their chances of traditional publishing in the future. I’ve gone straight for my real name, though I’ve discovered there are quite a few people out there with the same name as me. Maybe a pen name would have been a good idea, but I feel like that ship has sailed.

Tomorrow I have coworking and I have no clue what to be doing for that hour and a half! I guess I really should reach out to Sage.