It’s a Love/Hate Thing

Boom! Pow! Womp! Comic Book Fighting Sounds! I’m not entirely sure if I am the one making the sounds or the one on the receiving end of them, but here we are. I’m officially 34 levels up now.  

I’ve been reflecting on my life a little and honestly, I have no idea if I’m ahead or behind. “Successful” is not something you could really call my career, both in the writing space or in the real job sense of the word. But, I can’t say that my life has been bad. There have been bad moments, gods know there have been struggles and trials and our new favorite buzz word “trauma,” but overall it’s been good I think.  

I’ve been gazing towards the horizon, looking out for what comes next. My book release is coming in the fall. I’m trying to work as hard as I can to get my release slotted for September, but so far, the timeline is still up in the air since so much work is left to be done. But, I did promise myself my first book would be published before I turned 35, and low and behold I actually fucking did it... or I will have done it. Whatever tense fits the future tense of this particular situation. (I’m clearly no editor, I’m an idea woman.) 

The process of getting my novel out there is a LOT of work. I didn’t think it would be easy, but I honestly didn’t think it would be this much. Mostly it’s this ridiculous social media component I didn’t really think too hard about and now I’m sort of reeling from it. It’s a full-time job in and of itself, this “generating a media presence” fuckery. I honestly feel like a snake oil salesman, peddling a fictional product to all of you. (Yes, that’s a pun.) Partly because the physical book is not in my hands, I find myself feeling like I’m trying to sell you, well snake oil. (If you don’t know what that means... I can’t help you because I have to go cry over how god’s damned old I am.)  

I’ve been soliciting social media posters whose profiles and feeds I enjoy, that enjoy my gerne of work, and being like “hey, you want an advanced reader copy of my book to review, for free cause I’m the broke ass indie author?” Many have said “yes” which gives me such joy. But, at the same time these advanced reader copies are not ready and will not be ready for months yet and I feel like a fool asking so early but I’ve been told by my publisher to already start this. It feels bad... I feel as if my integrity dwindles with every self-promoting step. Unfortunately, this is the only way to sell this book in this day and age. I cannot huddle in my writing cave and hope that people notice my book, I need to shove it in their faces because otherwise it will be lost in the sea of books that are published regularly.  
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So, here we are... I do hope you, dear reader, end up purchasing a copy of this would-be book and that you love it as much as I do, even though at times I hate it so much.