Carpe Diem Scroto The Book blog

 It would seem that all is quite on the front lines now that the book is published. At the time of writing this I have sold about 30 copies of the book. Not a huge amount but still an impressive amount for myself. I am about to collaborate with a collogue of mine and revise the book and have a version 2 of the book hopefully ready by October. 

In the meantime, I have begun working, albeit slowly, on the next book which will be a companion to Carpe Diem Scroto called Carpe Diem Vita. CDV will be looking more into the mental health aspects of depression, grief, and daily struggles. It's going to be a bit "heavier" than what CDS is.

I also have a compendium of short stories that I am working on, that are just creative stories, that are to short to be full novels. I have tried fleshing out some of them, but I feel they are more impactful as a series of short stories.

I am still in the process of recovering from the passing of my mother on March 20th, 2025. And as I am working through the stages of grief, and undergoing counseling for it and other issues, I am beginning to have the strength to talk more openly about it, and it's giving me the ability to sit down and begin my work on yet another book with the working title called "The Healing Child and their Toxic Environment." This new book will focus on childhood traumas and coping mechanisms both good and bad, that we create in order to move through life one step at a time. It will also cover topics such as suicide where I will share my personal experience with it, and how I have to break the mold daily to open up and talk about my own struggles. 

So please bear with me while it is taking some time to get everything polished and worked out. Rome was not built in a day, nor was my life and the rollercoaster of its up's and down's. 

But know dear reader, that I appreciate you, and that YOU yourself are in need of kindness, love, and most of all, rest. Do not allow the weight of the world and others limit your own self-worth.

This makes it 100% complete (well until I get them to all the people who ordered 99.99%) and now the whole ordeal is behind me. I now know the process and details of self-publishing for the most part. Im sure that there are a few gaps in my knowledge and a few things that I have missed out on. But for my very first book, I am happy and content. 

Looking back over the last few years, it really does not see like that long ago but also feels like the last 3 years have been me running at max compacity. All of the work that I put into designing my cover. All of the typing, and the editing, and the back and forth with people for one reason or another. It is all surreal to think that its come to an end.

According to my PR team, they still want me to push forward and to get back out in front of people and tell my story over and over, and promote the book still and to start doing speaking engagements, and getting my book into the hands of some local book shops and even into the library system. I've got to come up with more money to get more copies made too. But all of that in good time.

Well as I sit here at my computer finishing up the last of my speech and making games to act as time fillers, I know that I am 98% done with my book and the journey it has taken me on. 99% will be having the book launch party this coming Sunday, and 100% will be me hand delivering the books to those who've ordered.

Im nervous, yet so beyond ready to just get it out there into the world and let people have access to it. I have still not released the URL as to where to purchase it and until I get some things finalized, I don't know that I will. As there are still so many things that I need to complete once the launch has come and gone.

But for now, all I can say is that regardless of if it's going to be well received or not. Carpe Diem Scroto is complete.

Well, there has come a point where new setbacks have occurred. It now looks like I may not be able to offer an eBook like I originally thought I would at this point in the books journey to publication. I may also be selling the book privately for a short time. What this means, is that book orders will most likely take up to 3 weeks to get to the customer due to shipping arrangements and the like. I am hoping that this is not going to be the case for very long if that is the option I have to choose, however, I am uncertain. 

This is not what I had planned and not how I wanted to conduct the release of my book. But when you have so many variables to deal with, it is hard to account for all of the hiccups that come along the way. Such is life, am I right?

What I can confirm is that things are at this moment still on track for the December 8th Book Launch Party, which may now be an intimate gathering of friends and family and well-wishers. I still have to confer with my PR Team as to how they wish to handle this.

So I will keep you all updated as things continue to unfold. Thank you all for your support and understanding. 

These last few months have been some of the most difficult and stressful. I honestly understand why "professional" authors hire Literary Agents and Traditional Publishing companies. The amount of red tape and hoops that an independent author has to jump through is enough to make you go absolutely insane!

Also no one ever really talks about the out-of-pocket costs of writing a book. You have to take care of every little thing yourself. Thankfully I already had some experience with doing gig jobs and have a background in marketing, and doing product reviews and things like that, so I wasn't completely blindsided when it came to who to turn to in order to get some things done. Other things, like ISBN numbers and other book related things have all been new learning experiences and will help me in the future should I go through with publishing other books. But I really do believe that IF there is a next time that I will seek out more traditional methods of publishing.

The issues that I am facing right now with the book is getting the eBook fixed so that it will render properly across all the eBook devices and that it will render on mobile phones. But I have sent the information of to my editor and should have it taken care of soon (fingers crossed.)

 If it's not one thing its 60 others. So due to the editor taking time that we didn't have, the PR team and I decided to push back the release date until 12/8/24.

This is not a decision that I am taking lightly and am actually rather upset at the fact that it has to be done, but there are too many pieces of the puzzle and with some people who have said that they will do XYZ and then not following through, it has caused a lot of stress and anger. So, without throwing people under the bus, Im just going to say that things haven't lined up properly. 

But I have to have faith that everything happens for a reason and whatever this "reason" is, it must be something good right? If I were a more superstitious person, I would almost think that this endeavor was cursed lol. 

I can now understand how important it is to have a literary agent, because they are the ones that take care of all of this. Maybe that is where my focus for the next book is going to be. Getting it done, and then getting an agent to take care of making sure all of the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted.

So for right now this is how its playing out. 

Well, I still have yet to get the edited book back from the Editor. He sent me a message asking to extend the deadline by 3 days, so I agreed to extend it. It was supposed to be back to me by 10/16 and I agreed to extend it to 10/20, so we'll see what is going to happen from there.

Also, I have been working on the webpage for the book www.cdsthebook.com and finishing up the ordering page, and it looks like I am going to be able to offer the book on Apple Books, Google Books, Kobo, Barns & Noble, and Amazon. Barns and Noble and Amazon will have both the eBook and the paperback, the others will only have eBook. The amount of hoop jumping I'm having to do in order to get these services setup has been interesting and can see why people suggest having a Literary Agent. But I am a hands-on type of person, and I like to figure things out the best I can, without having to pay out of pocket. That's why I use free services like Weebly, Square, Talkatone, and other such services. One, it helps me keep costs down, and two, I get to learn how to do things on my own. I can do basic HTML coding from scratch and type out the programing that I need, but when it comes to adding JAVA, CSS, and other programming languages, I rather use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) so that way it looks more professional and not a website designed in 1996.

So, with everything else going on in my personal day to day, it's kind of nice to let things get worked on in the background so that I can focus on other projects.

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 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. 

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.

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.

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.

 Well today finds me doing what I do best, creating webpages. I have started working on the pre-sale, and the order, pages for the book. I'm really excited and nervous about this at this same time. As we get closer to the deadline, and publication dates, it seems all surreal.

I'm sure that every creator who takes their idea from concept to draft, to physical creation feels this too. My biggest hope is that it will be well received, and that people find help, hope, and inspiration from Carpe Diem Scroto. 

Also, sometime this week I should be hearing back from the Community Events Commission about if I will be able to attend the upcoming community picnic and have a table and take in donations. I think that is what I am the most nervous and excited about. The prospect of having hundreds of people stopping by my booth and looking over my materials and getting to connect with people one on one.

Anyways, I just wanted to give a quick update as to what is happening, while I am sitting here at my work computer and taking a quick break. 

 So I recently had this commercial created and I like the narrative of it and think that it gets the message across about the book. What are your thoughts on it?