I have to admit that I felt the book launch jitters as my book Don’t Let Writer’s Block Stop You went out into the world in 2014.
On Kindle Select
Don’t Let Writer’s Block Stop You was in December of that year available as a free download as part of Amazon’s Kindle Select outreach. (It is still there and I would love it if you wrote a review of it. If you would like to do so, drop me a line and I will send you a review copy.)
As a book coach and editor who has worked with writers over the years, I am familiar with the writer’s book launch jitters. This anxiety often surrounds publication. While we writers are always happy to see a book finished and about to go out in the world, most writers are also apprehensive—
- “Is the book really ready for its audience?”
- “Have I been significant or superficial?”
- “Is it well written and free of typos, misspellings, grammar mistakes, formatting irregularities?”
- “Have I written for my audience or for myself?” etc.
I had worked hard. Of course, I wanted the effort to add up to a significant contribution to readers who were writing their memoirs?
Would the book pay for itself and earn me some income so that I could continue to do what I love to do?
“Perhaps it’s too soon to send this book out,” we might tell ourselves by way of avoiding the inevitable public judgment and possible disappointment that comes with any publication. Book launch jitters can be cruel! But…
Out the book goes and then we wait—for some bomb to fall?
Like most writers faced with book launch jitters
I am always both surprised to find myself feeling the very feelings that my clients have so often expressed to me and, at the same time, I am comforted to know that the same advice I give to clients is just what I need to listen to and follow. (As the author of many books, I know this feeling well, of course.)
My anxiety was under control, but it remained a low-level anxiety. Were I to have given in to it, I would have been succumbing to a version of the writer’s block—the one that postpones publication—and by now if there’s one thing I know it’s Don’t Let Writer’s Block Stop You!
Don’t Let Writer’s Block Stop You was ready to go out and out I sent it. It was now time to start incubating another book as the marketing for this one revved up. This is an effective action step to deal with book launch jitters: move on!
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