The Pain in Birthing a Book

It's raining hard the pounding of the water on the ground is like drums beating. My bills are piling up and my newest work is selling very erratically. In my mind all the doubts I have about attempting to write professionally and self-publish are coming back to haunt me like restless spirits. Everyday my ranking slips lower and lower. Then one day a few books sell, and the ranking jumps up a few notches. Yet to only the next day begin a free fall into the abyss. My stomach rumbles as I try to promote my book to more and more people online. A few ask a question or two. However, most just ignore my attempts to reach out to them.

The comments about the book are positive. The cover looks great, and the size is just right to carry in an average size women’s purse or satchel that many men carry. My company offers a rebate a substantial one. I can make money with offering the rebate a very handsome rebate. Why aren’t they buying? I have a book trailer and even an interview by a content creator from outside the country who people rave about. What is going on I scream in my head! Why! Why! Why! This pandemic has curtailed my going to book fairs and other events to sell my book face to face with people. This is what I usually do when I release a book. This method of sales has kept my small publishing business afloat.

I even have a website now for God’s sake! When I first started all the excuses and reasons people gave for not taking me seriously have now been put to rest. My company has grown from small newsletters printed on obvious looking recycled paper to us being almost all digital. Now my company has groups, pages online and can sometimes buy ads. It would be one thing if I had not worked hard to upgrade and improve my company and my writing. Or no one noticed my work then it would be easy to quit. However, with some people noticing and sometimes making it up the latter in the rankings on top sellers list makes it impossible for me to quit now. There are days like this one that I feel like a junkie going for that first high. It is enough to make me start pulling my hair out. Besides jumping off a bridge with a huge sign around my neck with my book title printed on it what am I to do to get more book sales?

Online advertising although very inexpensive is not good if you are going broke paying for it. And you are not getting responses why throw good money after bad? Reworking ads several times to try to get the right message across to a broad audience is exhaustive! One message is good for one group that same message will not work with other groups. Know your audience is what everyone tells you. What if your audience is varied in ethnicity, race and country of origin? Now throw in religion and you have a great reader gumbo. This is my primary audience the Islamic Muslim community of the world plus a few non-Muslims.

You can say one thing to the smaller non-Muslim readership however you must be on guard with the Muslims. So many are so quick to give you a khutbah (Islamic sermon) about how secular you are and why your ad turns them off. Sister! You must not say that, or you must not say this the balancing act is not easy if at all possible. Now my husband tells me that I must get away from the Islamic community all together to sell books. What? This is the group that I have sold books after our worship service for years and have done well. It is not unheard of for me to sell a dozen or more books at one masjid alone on a Friday after our congregational prayer. I have paid for new computer equipment from my book sales. I pay my annual registration with the state for my business from those book sales. I admit it is not tens of thousands of dollars annually yet however it should not be dismissed.

Today I return to my online writing education on YouTube. There are many writers who are at the top of their career who produce videos about how to write and post them on YouTube. Stephen King is one of them and he is on YouTube. Then they are the writers whose books sell well however have not made it to superstar status yet who have a lot to offer. Just cannot give up and will not give up! At 66 years young with two careers behind me, a successful family business that I co-manage what else do I have to do? Writing is what I plan to do until my brain gives out.