What’s it like for a reader when a book releases?
If you are an avid reader and you love an author you’ve probably grabbed the book when it came out on preorder.
If you are new to the author, you might think that looks interesting.
If it’s the genre you like to read you’re likely to go and read the backcover and take a good look a the front. If you like what you see, you stick it in your cart.
All three readers are different and yet they are the same. The minute they get time to themselves they retire to their favorite reading spot and open their e-reader or print book and sometimes they aren’t heard from for hours, dinner doesn’t get made, laundry stays in the dryer, and if it weren’t for that reminder on their phone they might not get to where they need to be.
From a writer’s point of view, release day is harrowing. We wait for those first sales, the first reviews, the good ones make us feel like we’ve climbed a mountain, the bad ones make us want to jump off a cliff.
It’s a roller coaster of emotions for a few weeks.
Dinner doesn’t get made, pizza is the main food and sandwiches lots of those because our fingers, brain and backs are tired from the writing, the editing and the watching of numbers. I wouldn’t recommend writing to anyone who is mildly interested. It is not for the weak. Well, maybe it is because as long as your mind, your fingers and Amazon delivers–you can write a book.
Did I mention that release day/week makes a writer a bit distracted? I probably shouldn’t drive a car today.
I might start thinking if a reader likes Jake or hates Raymond– his is hard to like, but give him time.
Was that light red?
Or maybe I should have written in the scene about using buffalo chips in the wagon to keep mosquitoes away. It could have been funny, but that’s part of the hard writing, knowing what to leave out. It didn’t fit. But still it bugs me that I didn’t write it. Maybe I will someday and give it to my newsettler subscribers to read just for fun. Right after I finish book 3.
Oh, didn’t I mention that? Release day is fun and exciting but it also means you need to get started on the next book.