As a writer, insecurity is an emotion that I battle on a daily basis. This chord was plucked yesterday and resulted in a night of tossing and turning and reading. This is why: when talking about book signings with a family friend, I was asked why I don't venture out of my tiny little town to the nearby suburbs and approach the only Barnes and Noble around about a book signing at the store.
And this is where I choke.
It was so hard to tell him that I don't feel good enough to step into a brick and mortar.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not embarrassed or ashamed by my Indie success,
I'm happy, I'm proud! But
I find that when those strings of insecurity are
tugged, it takes me days to weeks to get back into the flow of writing
again. I don't know if I'm ready for Barnes and Noble, but I have had
success at vendor fairs.
Then I read all of these
blog posts from successful authors, who I've
followed and their words have taught me most of what I know about the publishing industry today. And I read the words from Industry
leaders, who I
used to look up to. And I wish that those people who say things to me like, "maybe you'll get a real publisher," would read these articles and really see what's going on and understand my reasoning for not wanting a traditional publisher.
So what's a girl to do? Fill her editors Inbox throughout the night of course. (Thankfully, I have an understanding editor who puts up with my craziness and random middle-of-the-night messages.)
As we are talking, I tell her, "I just don't want to walk into a store and be
judged by a bunch of book snobs who don't understand the industry."
This is where the voice of reason/Kristy steps in and simply responds with: "
Who cares? Judgement is usually jealousy in disguise." (which I read with Morgan Freeman's voice)
The voice of reason.
And then this shows up: "In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison.
All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap,
and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember
thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the
wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved
geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age
here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of
pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time."
Can you see the traditional publishing walls crumbling?
Indie-publishing, the study of Pressure and Time.
So, I started this book, and
while I was reading I did a lot of thinking, thinking about how I'm
over reading stories about sassy poor little co-eds who find some hot
rich dude to solve all of their problems, money wise, food wise,
clothing wise, and sexing wise. I've never read 50 Shades but while I
was reading this I kept thinking, "Is this 50 Shades?" I guess I just
wanted more character development in the beginning. There's more to a
relationship than money and fornication.
