IWSG: My Daily Addiction

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, time for

Alexj J Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Hi, my name is Nancy and I am an addict…

I never wrote my novel with publishing in mind.  It was simply a lark, something I wanted to accomplish.  Once I got into it, though, I found I loved it.  Keep in mind, I knew nothing about writing fiction, but I did have a good education and was an avid reader.

I was fortunate enough to have all the critical plot points, so once I was finished and thought, “Hey, I might have something here,” all I needed to do was research what it takes to get published.  Trouble was, there was a lot on that list.  But I did it.  I jumped through most of the hoops.

I found querying to be an especially brutal one, demoralizing, really.  But I made it through, not the wholly traditional way—I bypassed the agent—yet I still managed to snag a book deal.  I thought, after edits are done, I’ll have all the hard parts behind me.  Yeah, not so much. 

I always thought publishing would bring me this huge sense of accomplishment, that I’d be nothing but happy, happy, happy.  But then I became obsessed.  Addicted.  It’s a daily struggle really.  They don’t tell you that once you’re published it’s all about selling.  But I didn’t know how to do that.  Marketing is not in my tool belt.  I’ve had to learn as I go, and I’ve learned I suck.  But still, I make progress, even though it is a struggle.

To gauge that war, I check my rankings on Amazon, constantly, both US and UK.  I hop on Goodreads to see how many people have added my book to their TBR list, how many new ratings, new reviews.  Same with Amazon.  I’m always worrying about where the next review will come from, will it suck, will it be amazing?  Will it spike my sales? 

So, as you can imagine, each day brings either a huge high of happiness or a face-planting low of failure.  One day, I’m up, the next, I’m down.  Some days, it’s up and down and up and down all within a few hours.  Oh cool, a great 5-star review on Amazon, YAY!  Let’s watch my book climb up Amazon’s Top-Rated in Romantic Suspense list, or Mysteries and Suspense, where it can really be seen.  Happy dance time!  Then I watch as my ranking gets higher and higher, which, of course, means no one has bought a copy that day.  When it goes above a certain threshold, I practically have a coronary. 

It’s driving me CRAZY!!!  I feel like an addict who craves the bottle or the needle or the pipe.  The information on Amazon and Goodreads is my drug.  I have to know.  I have to know!  Now, now, now! 

Well, I’ve reached my breaking point, I think.  I can’t do it any more.  I’ve had a lot of highs in the last week.  One of them was that my fans expect another book.  My readers message, email, text, and Facebook me, telling me this, yet I sit on my ass and obsess over numbers and rankings, and I’m getting nothing done.  I’ve been told, it’s easier to sell if you have multiple titles.  Well, that’s what I want to focus on, giving my readers another roller coaster to ride.

So I’m disconnecting, pulling back from the Internet.  Not completely.  But a lot.  I’ll still try to post to my blog on Mondays, but only if I have something important to say.  I won’t be around as much, to chat and comment, but I’ll be lurking.  I don’t want what I’ve been experiencing to be what publishing is all about for me.  I want that feeling I had way back in the beginning, when I sat at my desk, writing my book, living with my characters, creating a brand new world.

My name is Nancy, and I am a writer.  So watch me write.      

IWSG: Like a Yo-yo on a Roller Coaster

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, time for

Alex J. Cavanaugh’s InsecureWriters Support Group.

I’ve been trying to be more upbeat lately with my IWSG posts, more supportive, more positive.  But this month, I’m finding that a bit more difficult.  I think it’s just me getting tired, like being at the midway point during a marathon. 

My whole life, it seems, has become all about my book, the weekly, daily, and minute-to-minute ups and downs of how it’s selling, being reviewed, or how it’s ranking.  Everyday, it’s something new, an excited reader or a position shift on an Amazon list.  Just something.

And right along with these shifts, my mood soars or plummets.  I would liken it to a yo-yo on a roller coaster.  One minute I’m up and the next I’m down.  I take it all in, the reviewer progress reports on Facebook and Goodreads, the hourly rise and fall of my Amazon US ranking versus Amazon UK, and ugh, the reviews.  Most are good, but not all.  So even if I do get a good one, I let the not-so-good bring me down, only to pop back up when my title moves higher on a Top Rated list.

It’s never-ending and is seriously making my head spin.  And I cannot afford to be distracted or sidetracked right now.  I’m making huge progress on my next book, like two to four thousand words a day, so much that I have to take weekends off so my brain and psyche can recover from the emotional overload of writing this tale. 

It’s easy to just say, “Don’t look, don’t pay attention.”  But I know that won’t work for me.  Yet still, when I, all of a sudden, realize I haven’t checked some form of social media or Amazon in over eight hours, I realize how calm and focused I feel.  That should tell me something.  To stay away.  Don’t look.  So why do I continue to torture myself?