Last week, I shared the 12 Emotional Stages of a New Release, the reader edition. And so this week, I thought it’d be fun to give you a glimpse into the madness of the other side of coin … the emotional stages authors go through while writing and releasing …
The 12 Emotional Stages of a New Release — The Author Edition.
STAGE 1: You can hardly contain your excitement because you’ve got a great idea for a new book!
STAGE 2: And so you do what every great author does … you start writing.
STAGE 3: But then you realize … writing is hard. Like math hard. And holy shit, math can be hard! This is why authors are word people … not numbers people!
STAGE 4: But lucky for you, you have friends (and eager readers) to keep you motivated.
STAGE 5: You have that amazing revelation that what you’ve written is pure gold. Your story is so damn good, it’s destined to hit the #1 slot on the NYT Bestseller List. You’re going to sell millions — no, kajillions!!!
STAGE 6: And then exactly two point seven nanoseconds later you start re-reading everything you’ve written. And realize just how terribly wrong you were a moment ago. Seriously. What is this crap?
STAGE 7: But you’ve done all you can. And so you send the file off to your editor, effectively making it his or her problem to solve. It’s a good thing that editors are actually magicians in disguise. Because when the manuscript is returned, it actually makes sense!
STAGE 8: The moment of truth. You distribute ARCs and want the floor to swallow you whole because you’re terrified of what the world is going to think of this story that you love so much.
STAGE 9: The Early reviews start to roll in … and they’re good (mostly). And with enough alcohol, you can find something redeeming in the negative reviews, too. But let’s be honest … good or bad … you still booze.
STAGE 10: You upload to Amazon. And you wait. And you wait. And you wait some more. Then you hold your breath and hope that they don’t flag your file. Seriously? Why does it either take five minutes or five million hours?!
STAGE 11: And then finally it’s live … and you go shamelessly screaming from the rooftops so everyone and their mother and their dog walker can go forth and one click your new release.
STAGE 12: You finally exhale. And party. Because all the fruits of your labor are finally out there for the world to enjoy! Every single book sold is cause for celebration because it means someone is out there reading your words. Your blood. Your sweat. And your tears. And you have the power to profoundly impact another human being. And that’s pretty awesome.
BONUS STAGE: In that moment of reprieve, genius strikes again. Your next brilliant idea strikes like a lightning bolt. And you walk … no, sprint … to get the idea written down so you can start writing the world’s next great novel.
Enjoy this lil’ post? Stick around and check out some of the other shenanigans on my blog. Or heck, even in some of my books (after all, my dogs think they’re pretty damn good … and they’re not wrong about much these days, except maybe for eating their own poo. Okay, definitely. They’re definitely wrong about that. But they’re spot on about the books.)
PS … if you haven’t pre-registered for Book+Main Bites, the new social platform delivering content to readers without all the digital noise, what are you waiting for!?! It goes live on Wednesday and is the greatest thing since peanut butter met jelly.
Author BL. Berry 