IWSG: Control Issues (#amwriting, #ROW80)

One thing I love about indie publishing (and what I loved about writing for Samhain Publishing), is the level of control it affords me. This is hardly unusual; it’s a familiar refrain all across the indie community.

It’s pretty simple at the outset, at least for me. I break (develop) the story. I write the book. I revise the book. I edit the book. I write the cover copy and make the cover.

I add the book’s landing page to my website (i.e. give it a home). I launch the book and buys ads for marketing and advertising.

Write. Publish. Repeat. (Heh.)

These are all things I have glorious, unfettered control over. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA!!

Ahem.

But even here, in indie land where we have rope swings and band aids for when we scrape our knees, the control we have is only so much.

Other than by writing the very best book we can, other than by doing all the things we’re supposed to do to launch said book into the the wild, by doing the VERY BEST WE CAN IN THIS MOMENT RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, we have no control over how our work will be received.

Welcome to the creative life, y’all. It’s still scary, which is why it’s so important to have a support system in place. You can BETA the every-loving stuffing out of a book, collect critiques like Prince John collected taxes, and, essentially, EVERYTHING RIGHT, and still be playing to what appears to be an empty room. Maybe even the crickets aren’t all that impressed.

So I’m here to tell you–all cliches aside–LET IT GO.

All those echoes doesn’t mean you have a bad book, necessarily, Art is, after all, subjective, and everyone these days is a critic. But you can’t control how your book will ultimately be received.

So stop refreshing that Amazon page approximately 32 times per second. Don’t even look at your ranking, let alone obsess about them. Let the void be the void, while you back away from the precipice. That way lies madness.

Here, have some tea. *pat, pat*

Now. Here’s what you focus on instead.

Writing the next book. And the next one, and the next one. Keep up on changes and trends in the industry, but stop searching for that Golden Ticket that magically changes everything. There is no One Ring in the Wild West. All you can do is the best you can.

Keep writing. Keep trying. Keep your chin up, because the one constant here is that you are DEFINITELY not alone.

*drops mic*