Carpe Diem Scroto The Book blog

Well, I just at this very moment submitted the manuscript to the editor and everything is now under review, and he will begin working on it right away.

I am so flipping excited and nervous. My whole body is buzzing right now, and I think that it's just the adrenaline of pulling the trigger and making such a large investment in myself.

Now I've got to purchase my ISBN number and get everything submitted to KDP and Barns and Noble. 

Well I've been stressing about my book as per usual and a venue for the book launch party. Well I was given a rental space for 3hrs at a local community center. 

 Well by this time I would have liked to announce that the book was submitted for its final editing and formatting. However, as luck would have it, I got a message from the illustrator that they had some technical difficulties, and needed another week or so past the deadline that I originally gave them. So, of course the final editor has been blowing up my inbox wondering where everything is, because he has other projects on his desk. So I have a meeting this coming Tuesday with the artist and we are going to discuss the new deadline and hopefully have everything turned into the editor by 10/10 and he'll hopefully have it back to me by 10/20 for the publication date of 11/15 This is why I always give myself an extra few weeks on any project that I do, especially if I'm including other people.

That aside, I have been working on getting other projects up and going, and working on promotional materials and trying to get a venue set up for the book launch party. I have a lot of money going out and not that much coming in at the moment, but hey they say "you have to spend money to make money" right? I'm just so thankful for all the help, support, and well wishes that have come along the way. And I will be making my final adjustments to the Thank You section of the book before I submit it to the editor. 

I don't think that I've been so nervous in a long time. I just hope that it all goes according to plan. 

Well, it is officially September, and the book is scheduled to be published in November. I'm sitting here going over the logistics of everything and trying to figure out what needs to be done and what needs my attention right now, and what I can put off for another week or so. I'm not typically one for procrastination, but with other people's hands in the pot, I have to await to see the final results to go from there. 

I still have tremendous faith that this is going to all somehow work itself out. I cannot allow the stress to get to me and to stop with the finish line so close at hand.

As of right now I am playing the waiting game. I have been in contact with a seller on the Fiverr platform who is going to be the one I turn to for the final editing and formatting of my book. I have used Fiverr in the past for many other projects and have come to respect and trust its users.

It's funny that someone on the other side of the world is going to be the one who helps me in bringing my creation to life. I am really getting nervous about the thought of the book being in physical form that I have goosebumps just typing this. I think its going to be a huge celebration for me when I get my first few copies in the mail and I am able to do an unboxing video, and see the culmination of all my hard work and efforts come to life.

Do you believe in or follow the Zodiac? I am one of those people who kinda do. And if one follows them, then I am a Pieces on the cusp of Aries, which means that I am both emotionally connected, and easily angered.

The reason I bring this up, is because currently we are in what is called a Mercury Retrograde. This happens several times a year where it appears that Mercury is spinning backwards. Some believe that this is a time of upset and that can cause a number of issues both good and bad to occur. Well, with the way that things have gone the last few weeks, I would be a missed if I didnt say that I have to lend some credibility to the whole superstition that goes along with it.

August seems to be the retrograde that deals with communications, business, and personal relationships. There tends to be a break down in the aforementioned. And if you think about it, most relationships tend to get really rocky around the end of summer going into fall. Well for me, things have just been kind of middle of the road. 

I have had a lot of good things happen, and a lot of things that leave me scratching my head wondering what the heck just happened. In the form of communication, there were some important e-mails that I was waiting on, and despite me adding the sender to the safe contact list, Outlook still sent the emails to the junk folder. And it was by chance that I happened to check the folder and found all of the e-mails that I had been waiting on, which to my chagrin was a to little to late situation. 

I was supposed to attend a very large community gathering to showcase the book, and well, because of "not getting the emails" I thought that I had been declined in my request. Which both is upsetting and a blessing as my promotional materials that I needed and had ordered back in July just got sent out this last Wednesday and wont be here until well after the event. So, I am unsure why I had to miss out. But I've got to trust the process, right? I wonder if The Process knows we trust it? 

But with time ticking down quickly, I am worried that pulling everything together is going to be almost impossible. I'm not trying to be negative, it's just that I'm worried. But at the same time I have this inner peace and calm about how things are going to turn out.

This is what is going on so far :) 

 So, it looks like I may not be doing a pre-sale after looking at videos on YouTube about how to set that up on Barns and Noble and Amazon. According to everything that I watched, it looks like that doing so unless I was an established author or had a huge following, that it could actually cause me to have to "swim upstream" as it were when it came to getting ranked and getting in front of new customers with Amazon. 

So, since I don't want to compete with myself, I'm going to have to sit back and take a deeper dive into this and see if that is the case that other self-published authors have faced. Needless to say, I'll be heading on over to Reddit to see what they have to say on the matter at hand.

This doesn't change the deadlines that I have set for myself, the illustrator, editor, or the others involved. Just a reshifting (if needed) of focus.