Die, Pre-release Demons

Here we are, on the tail-end of another challenge wash. A feeling all too familiar. But this setback has special significance because it comes just over a week before my first book launches.

I watched for these challenge results with great eagerness because a placement, despite all my claims of rationality, represents a good omen. Should I be lucky enough to win, I could have ridden the new wave of attention and engagement right into next Friday (3/29—mark your calendars!) and perhaps parlayed that into more sales.

Even if I had made Runner Up, that would be a promising sign of things to come.

Instead, I didn’t place. Not that that’s anything new, but now the same logic that forecasted positive outcomes with a challenge success is now inverted.

Lack of challenge placement? Bad omen. Disaster to come!

And with that looming sense of doom, I now look back at every decision that has led me to where I’m at with A Bloody Business and start to question from where the death knell will come.

But that’s stupid. There is nothing connecting this challenge and this book, save that both originated on this platform.

Still, the questions this setback dug up are valid. So allow me to dismantle/push back on every one of them in real time. And in so doing, perhaps I can finally kill the pre-release demons that have been lurking in the back of my brain for the past couple months a la SpongeBob:

From everyone up here on the flight deck that is my brain, we invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Bring in the Demons, There Must Be Demons

Demon #1, please make your way to the stage!

Demon #1: Why start with a one-off novel? Why not start with a series? Aren’t you potentially losing part of your audience because you only get the “first book” boost once. Plus, there’s no guarantee someone who enjoys Martin Williams will like Dick Winchester.

This one is particularly prevalent in my mind, because it’s not hypothetical. I have a series. In fact, the first Dick Winchester book is projected for a September release.

BUT Demon #1's conjecture is all a bit of revisionist history. Back in September 2023 when I knuckled down and finally finished the Martin Williams chronology, I hadn’t even started thinking of Dick Winchester as a book. Somehow, even as I turned one Vocal short story series into a book (Martin W.), it didn’t occur to me that I could do the same for another Vocal short story series (Dick W.).

Only after I had fired off the Martin Williams manuscript to my editor did I turn around and take another look at Dick Winchester. Finally, I asked, “I wonder if there’s another book sitting right here?”

Spoiler: there was! It’s coming in six months.

So of course I picked the horse who was ready to run the race. Who wouldn’t?

Not to mention, delaying on Dick Winchester worked out quite well. By the time I started to compile the full manuscript, I had a more fleshed out ending and could pull in Chapter 1 of Book 2 as a Bonus chapter at the end of Book 1, reassuring readers who liked Book 1 that more was to come and building up anticipation. And anticipation (hopefully) equals momentum.

So, should I have started with a series? All things being equal, yes.

Could I have started with a series given the reality of where things stood? No.

So fuck off and die, Demon #1 with your hindsight.

Demon #2, you’re up!

Demon #2: Why didn’t you include a hardcover option? It’s just a couple more clicks in KDP, isn’t it?

Easy: because the hardcovers from KDP suck. And by that, I mean they look like textbooks. I should know:

Demon #2: Okay, so why didn’t you source your hardcovers through IngramSpark?

Even easier: because IngramSpark also sucks. A fellow author friend of mine went on a thousand-word diatribe about how awful they are to work with as a company.

Not to mention, a hardcover option would mean I needed another cover from my designer, and that design work has easily been the most expensive part of this process, so no need to drive that price up even higher for the vanity of having my words in hardcover.

Not that I’m upset with the outcome. You pay for what you get, and I certainly got my money’s worth on the cover art:

I cast you into the shadow realm, Demon #2.

Let’s give a hearty round of applause for our next contestant, Demon #3!

Demon #3: Aren’t you worried about all the negative reviews you’re about to get? Won’t that kill your writing spirit?

A bit, I’ll admit.

But, I’ve already faced quite a bit of negative feedback in this writing hustle. Credit to fellow Vocal Stephen (Stephen Kramer Avitabile) for getting me thinking about just how many rejections have I received in the last 8 years?

The answer is: I don’t know, I don’t want to do the work to track that number down, and, most of all, I don’t want to know.

But I have 97 rejections in Submittable right now, and that’s ignoring all the other submissions through email, Moksha, Duosuma, etc.

All these editors said no to my prose/poetry. And yet, I’m still here. Still writing. About to release a book.

So, just as when I receive the classic “thanks, but no” email response, I will sigh when I see the negative review come in, roll my eyes a bit, and get back to writing. Not always immediately, but within a day at most.

Resiliency is the name of the submissions game, and I like to believe I’ve built up calluses to this stuff.

Not to mention, it’s always important to remember these people paid for the privilege to think whatever they think about this book. Credit to other fellow Vocal creator Annie Kapur for inspiring me to articulate this point so well in the comments for her article “My Unpopular Literary Opinions”:

You buy it, you can burn it. A policy to live by 😊

So, into the book bonfire with you, Demon #3!

Good morning, Demon #4!

Demon #4: Was it really worth pushing the release so far back so you could release the audiobook at the same time as the print and e-book options?

Yes, if for no other reason, then to let me get further ahead on Dick Winchester in the interim.

But actually, I’m a huge audiobook listener, and nothing annoys me more than having to wait two months because the audiobook never releases when the book itself releases. Just because I can’t read, doesn’t mean I don’t want to join in the new book hype, damn it!

So, assuming there are others like me out there—and that feels like a bit of a shaky assumption, now that I think about it—I orchestrated this process so that everything releases all at once.

Because otherwise you’re counting on those who would have bought the audiobook had it been ready to remember to come back and check for it later.

And I’m just not sure that’s a good thing to count on. When’s the last time you remembered to do something without someone asking/a calendar notification?

Exactly.

All of that aside, it will also be nice to focus solely on post-release promotions and the upcoming Dick Winchester books without also having this giant chunk of A Bloody Business still hanging over my head.

Even I, with no children, no significant other, and no pets, can only focus on so many projects at once before quality suffers. To those who have all those things but continue to create, my hat is off to you.

Rest in pieces, Demon #4!

Okay, Demon #5, you’re all that’s left. Give me your worst!

Demon #5: What if you do all of this: spend all this time, all this money, all this brainpower, and it flops?

Ah, the final boss, indeed.

That would hurt, for sure. I’m not owed anything, but it would be nice to see all this effort bear fruit.

However, my mantra for this entire process is I will be (and already am) learning valuable lessons from the experience. Both the successes, but especially the failures.

And if the ultimate takeaway is that independent publishing isn’t the cornucopia I thought it was, that’s a tough lesson, but a valuable one to ensure I focus my energy where the reward is greatest.

Besides, I’m trying to take a growth mindset here. The first book is more about exposure than it is about sales. You’re trying to build an audience with an appetite for your full-length content where there wasn’t one before.

Am I undercutting sales by buying author copies and spreading them throughout my local community libraries? To some extent. But will it be valuable to reach new eyes and break into new circles outside my family, friends, and existing followings? Absolutely.

Plus, I’m including little notes in the front calling out that they’re reading a local author, and I’m hoping that connection to our shared sense of place will drive them to engage more than just a random name they’ve never seen before.

Will it work out that way? Only one way to find out.

And that’s my other mantra for this whole experience: only one way to find out.

Or, to put it differently: you know which book will never sell?

The one that’s never written.

A Brief Note of Thanks

First, to those who have been following me for a while on here, thank you for your support.

Second, for those who have specifically been following the Martin Williams series and eagerly awaiting the release of A Bloody Business (AKA Randy), a double word of thanks. I know it’s never fun to be told something is three months away, but it’s Christmas Eve now. Just one more sleep until the big day (metaphorically).

Third, to the adjudicators of the most recent challenge: thank you 🙏

I had the idea to write this article a week ago. But in the days since, I couldn’t bring myself into the right headspace. Mostly because I’d been feeling pretty good about the upcoming release. So why give voice to the doubts when I wasn’t feeling them?

You passing on “The Better Writer” and the resulting thoughts of the “bad omen” kicked off the downward spiral that awoke the demons long enough for me to kill them.

Now, I doubt you knew that my mind was conflating challenge with book release. I doubt you even thought about the upcoming release of A Bloody Business when you made that decision. I certainly didn’t have that in mind when I wrote my challenge entry.

But perhaps you did. Perhaps you knew this was the exact spark I needed to get my pre-release demons out into the open so I could then kick them into the dirt.

In which case: thank you x2. You’re all real ones 🤙

Because I’m fired up now. Come what may, I’ll have done it. I’ll have committed, picked a date, and kept that promise. Even if no one buys it, even if the book offends so much that bigots burn it by the dozen, even if certain folks use this as an opportunity to take retribution by submitting nasty reviews without even paying for the privilege: that all will not rob me of the milestone.

And these and all other outcomes will yield valuable lessons for the future. Even if the only real takeaway is to look into fire retardant covers for the next book release.

March 29th. LET’S GET IT.