Loving What You Do

Self publishing is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have complete control. Feel like giving away a copy of your book to someone interested in reviewing it? You can! Feel like putting on a sale to increase interest in your books? You're good to go. Has life decided to offer a bit of smackdown on you  - computer failure, skiing accident, the flu - and you need to take the day off? It's all good.

On the other hand, you bear all of the responsibility. Need a cover? Better find someone to commission one from. Need to format that book? Hope you know how to do it (or have the resources and/or connections to have it done). Need to market that book? It's all you, buddy.

That blade swings both ways, and trust me when I say that the edge is sharp. You feel it most keenly as you get ready to release a publication. You've busted your butt this whole time writing, and revising, and editing until you can practically recite your whole book from memory. You've gone through so many pages of revisions that it makes the Affordable Care Act look small. You're tired, but excited, because all of that hard work is about to pay off when your readers get to enjoy your story.

Wait - you're not done. You need to market your book still. (Truthfully, you should have been doing that this whole time, but now you don't have anything else to consume your time.) If no one knows your book is out, no one is going to read it, and all of that hard work was for nothing but personal satisfaction. You need book reviews, you need a way to attract readers - new readers, not just existing fans - and you need a way to get your book's cover in front of those impulse-happy shoppers who don't mind taking a chance, or using their precious Prime Member Lender's Library option for the month on your book.

No pressure, right?

Hah.

Why do I bring this up? Because that's the stage I'm at with Gavain's Proving. Everything is lining up nicely. I have a few more edits (there always seems to be one more typo that you somehow missed, no matter how many times you comb through your manuscript), and then it's a matter of getting everything indexed for conversion to a .mobi file, and then... release! I can't wait - but marketing... I don't like marketing. It is definitely not on my top 100 list.

So why go on about it? Because no matter how much I dislike marketing, no matter how much I wish that someone else could do all of this and just let me write, write, write...

I'm having a blast. I love what I do. And no matter how much work that I dislike it forces me to do, I'm extremely grateful that self publishing has allowed me to write.

And you gotta find that joy in what you do. It's what makes it all worth the doing.

So what is it about your job that you love doing? If you haven't thought about it in a while, take a moment to reflect on those positives. When the things you love about your job put a smile on your face, all the burdens of the stuff you can't stand seem so tiny in comparison.

(Here are some covers to delight your senses - have your read everything on the list?)

Available now from Amazon

Available now from Amazon

Coming Soon!