T'was the Night Before...
It's Friday, June 23, 2017. It's a target blog day. As many of you know by now, this would typically mean I'd be plotting some witty or insightful post based on what I've been doing this week or what promotional plots I've been scheming for Ash to Ashes. (Get the book HERE in paperback or e-book!)
Instead I'm staring at the computer screen, eyeballing my pile of event materials, and quietly fighting back my anxiety for tomorrow. What am I forgetting? Are there things I should be doing? Should I do promo cards? Crap. Do I have ink that I can print promo cards? Is it really just me hanging around for four hours talking about my book, selling and signing copies, or should I have some sort of speech prepared? Should I be blocking sections for a reading? I didn't plan to do that at this event. Is that something I should have planned for this event?
Self is excited. He's clapping and dancing about like we're getting ready to go to Sea World.
Me? I'm running scenarios in my head like I'm preparing to storm Normandy Beach (in the historical sense, obviously, nobody cares if I run up that beach now as long as I keep my knickers on).
Tomorrow (Saturday, June 24, 2017) is my first book signing event. It's a small local event at Cornerstone Coffee Haus on Main Street. I'm presently 60/40 Excited vs Anxious. It's a classic me approach: Plan something important and then freak out about it at the last minute. But in this particular case, I can't talk myself out of going because my being there kind of IS the event. Logic brain says it'll be fun, hopefully some good exposure, and with any luck I'll sell enough copies of the book to at least makeup the cost of filling the inventory for the event. Emotional brain says "What if nobody shows?" "What if everybody shows?" "What if you don't sell any books?" "What if you sell out of books?"...basically just a big long list of "What if...?" scenarios that actually bore me too much to type out. They bore me because I officially looked at all of them and my answer was the same: "Oh well. If it happens, it happens, and we'll deal with it then. Nothing we can do about it now."
So here I sit, keeping myself busy with laundry and other projects, awaiting tomorrow's event with excitement and anxiety. It should be interesting however it goes down.
In OTHER news...
It finally happened. It took 11 reviews (which, by the way, YAY 11 Reviews!), but I got my first 3 star review, officially killing my 5 star record on Amazon. I wish I could say that I was flabbergasted or wounded to see it, but I already talked to the reviewer who posted it earlier this week, so I knew it was coming. The review itself was balanced and fair so I can't even be upset about it. I can even see where she's coming from in spots, though I also recognize that a lot of that weight is a matter of personal opinion and preference. Those are things I can't fault anybody for, so I choose to acknowledge and move on. It's not like I'm going to go back and rewrite the book over it. (Oh, hell no.) I also had the benefit of being able to discuss her opinion with her beforehand and get intelligent feedback, so my fragile ego was able to come out of it mostly unscathed. I even thanked her when she told me I wasn't getting a 5-star review because it would help give some credence to the reviews that were already there and take the pressure off hoping the perfect record would stick.
Is there still a part of me waiting to be shattered with a scathing review? Yeah, there's still a bit of that trepidation lingering, but at least now I can move on knowing it's ok to not be perfect as long as I do the best work that I can. As I said before, I'm never going to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Trying to meet that kind of expectation is terribly self-defeating and exhausting. Also, I've gotten a few different comments from people in the last week or two about things they didn't necessarily like. I don't get mad, I don't even feel particularly bothered, I just have to bite my cheek a bit to keep from blurting out, "Well, it's not like I'm going to change it now!" (Oh, but you people are going on my Alpha reader list, oh yes. You and your opinions will yet be useful to me, oh yes, indeed.)
