Carpe Diem Scroto The Book blog

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.

Well today is August 1st which means there is exactly 75 days until I need to have everything ready to go for the book. I'm nervous as all get out. I feel like there is still so much to do and I am really starting to feel like it might not come together in time.

I know that is just my anxiety rearing its ugly head and making me doubt myself and the project at hand. However, if it were just ME, I know that I could have it all done. However, there are still other parties that I need to deal with. The Illustrator still only has part of the manuscript, and the editor has the other part of it, and I have none of the edited or illustrated work, and I still need to have time to make all the changes and get them submitted to the publisher. So, I know that I'm going to be typing my fingers to the bone getting it all done from September 15th to October 15th.

I also now have to make the quick decision as to what community events I'm going to be planning and attending. There's one that I can attend in August and one that I can attend in September. With everything that is going on right now, I'm thinking that the September event may be the one that I should focus on.