On publishing a book: THE FEAR

My friend Nate Johnson has a book coming out a month after mine does, and he recently posted about what he calls “Don’t Screw This Up” and what I think of as THE FEAR. Writing a book requires its own particular tussle with one’s ego, but in some ways you’re so busy and so engrossed that you don’t have time to let the prick of fear electrify your armpits. But now that the manuscript is done and I’m working more and more on publicity and facing the prospect of doing something that is fundamentally an anathema to me (that is, talking about myself and what goes on in my brain), I’m fucking petrified. Behind the hours of building my Twitter following, reading through outtakes of my book to figure out what would make attractive blog posts, and thinking about who to beg for a blurb is a mighty stack of scared shitless that only threatens to tower ever higher between now and January.

I’m someone who can barely toot my own kazoo, let alone my own horn…and believe me, it takes courage for me to even say THAT (because, you know, kazoos can be so terribly loud). I’ve never been down for fabulizing myself or anything else aside from other people’s books that I adore or a pair of really fantastic boots. Rather, my skill set is more in what my friend Frankie calls “awfulizing.”

A couple of writer friends and people in the publishing industry have assured me that what I’m going through is totally and completely normal among debut authors, so maybe if I just get it out and list at least some of the potential awfuls, I’ll not only help myself but someone other writer who is shaking in their boots as their literary due date approaches.

The Tiers of Fear (in no particular order)

Fear #1: I’m a fraud. Nope, even though I’ve read about, thought about, and studied heartbreak intensively for a few years now (and wracked up a few years mired in the experience), I know nothing about it, and someone is going to call me out. Someone either loud, prominent, or improbable (or all three) that I either worship or hate. Some days in my head my most raging critics are, I kid you not, Roger Ebert and Ann Coulter.

Fear #2: I can’t write. Despite the fact that I’ve been assured that I can in fact write reasonably well, and that I’ve won awards for my work, and that other writers whom I respect have said I’ve got chops, they’re all lying sacks of shit.

Fear #3: I will accidentally plagiarize. Have I picked through my manuscript repeatedly like a mama orangutan looking for nits in her baby’s fuzz? Has a kick-ass copy editor/fact-checker done the same and dutifully kicked my ass when I didn’t attribute enough? Yep. Did I in fact perhaps OVER attribute, to the point where it’s distracting? Maybe. Yet still, I have literally lost sleep worrying if I’m going to get slapped with a massive lawsuit for not replacing the term “pink cheeks” with “rosy cheeks” in a section where I’ve rigorously paraphrased because I had only one source. (When I shared this particular potential awful with another writer friend working on a book, he said, “Yep, I have dozens of pink cheeks phrases circling like vultures.”)

Fear #4: I will come off like a total idiot in interviews. I’ll babble incoherently, and every phrase I utter will be festooned with more “um’s” and “uh’s” than sprinkles on a cupcake decorated by a two-year-old. Worse, someone will ask me a question and I’ll either not know the answer or give the INCORRECT answer. Seriously, Fear #4 is like the Gong Show on repeat in my head.

Fear #5: No one will interview me at all. The Little Book of Heartbreak will come out and my publicist will never email me asking what my schedule looks like and can I fit in a chat with someone who is a professional talker-to-of-interesting-people. In fact, the book is so unremarkable that even my friends won’t want to chat with me anymore. At social gatherings I’ll be herded into a corner, gagged with duct tape, and dumped behind a baby gate.

Fear #6: No one will buy my book. Let me explain that this fear has multiple prongs. First, there’s the ego prong: if The Little Book of Hearbreak flops, then I’ll impale myself with a thousand kabob skewers because of the few passing moments I’ve had when I’ve actually believed that it was worthwhile and that every page, as I suggest in the book’s introduction, might make make heartbroken readers feel a tiny bit better. Then there’s the financial prong: Every author dreams that their book will be a best-seller and assure them that if they manage their profits wisely, they can maybe do something that’s been thus far out of reach, like buy a house or tuck away some cash towards retirement or send their kids to private school or trade in the 10-year-old Subaru. But the reality, so I’ve heard, is that many best-sellers don’t even make the authors that much money (which means that it really is all about ego). The fact is, if my book doesn’t do well, I will in fact have lost money on it because I turned down other much higher-paying work while I was writing. (I just did the math on this, and my generous estimate of how much I will have made per hour off my advance in researching, writing, and promoting my book? Trust me, it’s way, way, way below minimum wage.)

Fear #7. Because no one will buy my book, my agent and editor, both of whom I adore, will never speak to me again. I’ll be a has-been that never was.

Wow. That feels better. Back to work now — you know, not screwing this up. Just as Nate wrote, “This is a big chance, I’ve got to make the most of it.”