A Book Published: Year One

Today, March 29, 2013 is the one-year anniversary of my debut novel.  It’s on sale at Amazon for a mere $2.99.  Click here!

Yeah, it’s been a year.  In that time, it’s been quite the ride.  Here are some things that struck me as I looked back.  Exhausting.  Overwhelming.   And in bullet points, for your viewing pleasure.

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Bullet points of having a book published. Year one.

  • The joy of a book I can no longer revise.zNPFrontLrgCover
  • The horror of a book I can no longer revise.
  • The bliss of handselling.
  • The horror of handselling.
  • How online hours marketing eats away at my soul, a little bit at a time.
  • How wonderful it is to have strangers read my book and give their honest opinion on Goodreads.
  • The horror of strangers reading my book and their damn opinions.
  • I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of people saying they cried while reading my words. I must’ve done something right.
  • Most people celebrated my book and my accomplishment. Most people, but not all.
  • Everyone likes a celebrity, even minor ones.
  • Having a book out in the world is better than having a book alone in a basement.
  • The terror of sitting at signing tables with authors who are much more talented, much more accomplished, much more popular than I’ll ever be.
  • Seeing the flash in someone’s eyes. “You’ve written a book. Really?”
  • Hearing about people praising you behind your back. Thank you, Colorado Springs.
  • Getting calls out of the blue, “Would you like to come talk at our book club?” Would I? Do you even know who you’re talking to?
  • The sad fact that I can’t write all the books I wanna write. Not enough time. Too much to do.
  • Seeing my name, with an ISBN, on a novel that actual people are going to actually read.
  • Reading my words at a book event, and loving them because I’d spent years and buckets of sweat to bring them out and shape them just so.
  • Two words: Tax deductible. I thought I had five years for my fiction writing business to be profitable. Turns out, I can pour money into this venture for decades. I keep telling my friends, “I’m going to write until the money is gone.”
  • If nothing else, when I die, I will leave a book behind. Not only a book, a book that is uniquely me. A love story with angels, demons, drug addicts, and atheists. That’s my book. That’s me.
  • The game has changed. I can’t go back. More than that, I don’t wanna go back. I will write books and publish books until I die. And if all goes well, even after I take that short walk home.

zSAM_2815 Happy Birthday, Never Prayer!  Want to give this little baby the perfect gift?  The ebook on Amazon.  Hurray!

 

My Sales Numbers

I found something more cutting and disheartening than getting rejection from literary agents. My book sales numbers. I just got my Q2 numbers back and yeah, um, not the fly-off-the-shelf numbers I would have liked to see. At first, I was laid low. But then, I got some perspective. Very few authors are ever going to get the Harry-Potter-Twilight experience. Very few even get the midlist, big-publishing house experience. Most writers write a book, several hundred people read it, and ten minutes later it’s at the Goodwill for 10 cents.

However, instead of getting a dozen donuts and watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I went mountain biking. And I haven’t mountain biked in months. So there I was, huffing and sweating and puffing and cursing the mile I rode up the mountain, climbing, climbing, climbing, when a walker came by and I stopped, er collapsed, to let him walk by. And we had a typical exchange.

Walker: Hard work, huh?
Me: Yeah. Brutal, but fun.
Walker: Good for you though.

He went on by, I clipped into my pedals and continued the climb and it struck me; the writing game is good for me. All life is a struggle. That’s one of the themes in my novel, The Never Prayer. Maybe you are one of the lucky hundred to have read it.

All life is struggle, and me struggling in the writing game is valuable to me, to those around me, to other writers. It’s brutal fun. And it’s good for me.

The story doesn’t end there. So I’ve been watching a lot of House M.D. I’m struggling through season 8 to get to the finale and God only knows why they didn’t keep House in prison for half the season. House in prison was delicious.

So while I’m biking, I’m conceding that the writing game is good for my psyche, however painful and however much of a struggle it is, and I think about House M.D. and happiness. House believes that only people who lie to themselves can be happy. That life is inherently too difficult to be enjoyed.

That may or may not be the case. However, having a dream, having a goal, believing the lie that maybe, maybe I’ll be one of the lucky writers to break through and make it, well, it keeps me going. It doesn’t keep me happy, but in the better moments, it keeps me satisfied.

And maybe satisfaction is enough no matter what my numbers are.

Mondays are Hell – A Demon ate my Blog Post

Um, well, I was going to have a huge blog post today, or I was going to link to another site where I was guest blogging, or I expected the zombie apocalypse, but that all didn’t happen.  So, world, this is my blog post today.

My wife is out of town, and I have to get my kids ready for school.  That, in some circles, is considered hell.  But the trick to life is enjoying what you are doing, when you are doing it.

Cover me.  I’m going in.

THIS JUST IN!!!  My guest blogging chance came through!  My kids are at school and life is good!

You wanna see me get contrary?  Click here!  http://crescentmoonpress.com/blog/

Get Off Me! Don’t Tell Me What To Read!