When you give birth to a new book you have certain expectations. One of them is that everyone should be as excited about it as yourself. But alas! You’re not J. K. Rowlings or Diana Gabaldon with thousands of fans anxiously waiting for the local Barnes & Noble doors to open so they can rush in and buy your new book. So you wait and check your Amazon page every five minutes waiting for a review or sales, getting overly excited when your book ranking goes up a few points and crashing into despair when the little arrow dips down.
I woke up this morning with an upset stomach. Nerves made me ache all over and feel like I should crawl back in bed and sleep. I dragged myself downstairs, drank a coffee and checked my messages. No reviews yet. In fact, being Saturday, cyber space was pretty quiet. Bummer!
After the least restful yoga session ever–couldn’t get my head of my release–I came home to find out I had a review. An awesome review. I could breathe easier now.
But it was not over. With the ebb and flow of reviews and promotions across blogs, Facebook, and Twitter my stomach had a hard time keeping stable. It was so bad, I gave a stomachache to my MC in the novel I’m writing. Why should I suffer alone, right?
I gave birth to little humans and now to books (this is my fourth one) and I’m here to tell you with each new birth there is this surge of hope, possibility that this is the one who will make you an established name in the book world–maybe even the one who may cause a slight surge of one-clicks when your next book comes out. It’s bliss. It’s agony.
Writers out there, how do your releases make you feel? What things make you anxious and/or happy? Do you wait around checking your rankings like I do or pretend they don’t exist?
Author Natalina Reis 