Life After Self-Publishing

As part of my normal morning routine, I was trolling through my Bloglines subscriptions this morning and came across a post by C.J. Redwine on Life After Querying.   As I was sitting there reading through the list, I realized that a lot of the same things apply to life after self-publishing something.

It’s an exciting thing, self-publishing.  You see your hard work in online retailers to be bought (or merely downloaded if you’re offering up stuff for free).  Either way, you have means for people to access the product of your blood, sweat, and tears.  Which means that you obsessively check your stats on Scribd and Smashwords (even though you have your preferences set to email you any time there is a sale or review).  You go to the Amazon listing page 18 times a day to check your ranking, which swings wildly based on factors entirely out of your control.  You haunt the Smashwords Distribution Channel Manager, eagerly awaiting news on the ship date to all the other distributors.  You eat a lot of Cadbury eggs for therapy. You find out that they’ve shipped to Apple’s iBookstore but you don’t know anybody with an iPad who can check to see if it’s REALLY THERE, since Apple is lame and doesn’t allow mere mortals who only have the interwebz to actually browse the iBookstore.

And then you have a kind soul who’s been there before tell you that there are folks who were approved for the Premium Catalog back in November who still haven’t shipped to Barnes and Noble, so stop obsessing and go write something!

Wiser words have never been spoken, Kerry.  So thanks.

Other than organizing my May blog tour and relevant guest posts and interviews, there’s not a darn thing I can do to change the waiting game.  So the best thing I can do is go write something.  Like, you know, the sequel.  That story that got a massive overhaul last week in order to accommodate the change of hero.  And the fresh details about the meta plot.

Whether you’re waiting for sales numbers, ship dates, or responses to queries or other submissions, all you can REALLY DO to save your sanity while waiting is write. And work out a lot to counteract the effects of all those Cadbury eggs.

2 thoughts on “Life After Self-Publishing

  1. Haven’t submitted too much writing, just three contest entries, but the waiting is terrible!Falling into the next piece definitely helps to bring back the sanity and remind you why you do it all in the first place! What is your book xalled and what is it about? Keep writing 😀

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