I’ll admit it. I’m scared.
It’s a fear loop, really. So that sucks.
I am afraid that I will not make money trying to sell my book.
I never went to college, cuz the only thing I ever wanted to do was write novels. I figured I would do coffee shop work (or similar) until my first novel sold. I figured I would maybe be thirty by the time that happened, if I put my nose to the grindstone. Oh, hopeful youth! So, while I would say I have some marketable skills, I have no piece of paper that says, yes, Melody read the classics, she knows grammar, understands good sentence structure, and is basically employable in some kind of office capacity making a halfway decent salary. I didn’t want to waste time on that crap. I wanted to be a novelist. So after this many years doing coffeehouse work (or similar) I’m sick of it. Fucking sick. I have a mind, I have bills, but all I can get is poorly paid work doing stuff a trained monkey could do. I don’t want to do that anymore.
If I can’t make money selling my book, that’s what I have to keep doing. Monkey work.
Why wouldn’t I make money from my book(s)?
Am I a suck-ass writer?
No, I don’t believe so.
Am I a suck-ass promoter?
Yeah. Maybe.
I’m afraid of talking to strangers.
I mean, I waitress half of my shifts at the restaurant I work at, so no, I’m not afraid of talking to strangers. I’m afraid of asking strangers for things. I’m afraid of asking strangers to take me seriously. I’m afraid of asking strangers to do something as intimate as help me promote my book — my baby — or even buy a copy. That’s what promoting is.
Also, e-book promotion is a whole other beastie from paper book promoting. That should encourage me, since I sucked hard at promoting my self-published paper book. Instead, I feel intimidated. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing to promote an e-book. Blog, I guess. Hi.
So, I need to put time into learning how and promoting my book. Okay.
Do I suck ass at time-management? At sitting down and doing things I’m supposed to do?
Yep.
So here we go. If I put time into promoting, I should see results. But I am bad at putting time into things. So I probably won’t see results. Thus resulting in me not making money at my book, and continuing to have to do monkey work.
So I need to learn time management skills.
Isn’t that something I have to make time to sit down and study? Figure out?
Yep.
Am I bad at that?
Yep.
So my being bad at time management will cause me to continue to be bad at time management, which will cause me not to promote my book properly, which will cause me not to make money with my book, which will cause me to have to continue doing monkey work.
Also, let’s face it, I think my book is pretty decent, I think the sequel is better, and I think the faerie story I’m working on now is really fucking sweet. Does that mean you will? Does that mean anyone will? I like to think so, but above and beyond being a suck-ass promoter, there is the plain old “what if I am a suck-ass writer and I don’t know it?” factor.
I’m going to go gnaw my own leg off now.
