Highs and lows of a new author

Hi,

This is my first blog posting and I would like to share a little of the joys and frustrations that a new writer might experience.

The last two weeks have had some highs and lows for yours truly - I finished the fourth chapter of my next book, (The Island of Serenity), and went to add it to the net site that I have created for that: (www.islandofserenity.com). As the site was becoming a bit big, I thought that it might be an interesting idea to attempt to create a subdomain. The idea was good, only it took four days and multiple telephone calls, (not to mention stress, strain, headaches and potential hair loss), before I got the site up and running.

So that was pretty good.

Then on Sunday, I invited some people over to celebrate the finishing, (at least for this year), of a terrace that I have created, by hand, almost totally single-headedly, over the last two years.

Again, goodness.

Unfortunately, Monday morning brought a 'coup de blues', a reaction of anticlimax and a feeling that nothing was worth while.

I have finished and published 'my' book; two years of writing and a life time of experience, but I do not have the means to publicise it, (I work more than full time as a psychologist, psychotherapist, and I have many, many other obligations, responsibilities and projects), and so sales are still disappointingly low.

This despondency lasted all of two full days, until on Wednesday, I started to come out of it.

By chance I scrolled through the site of a new FB Friend, Katie St. Claire (The Sassy Pen Blogspot) https://www.facebook.com/thesassypen?...
Where I noticed that she was offering, 'Author's Interviews', so I contacted her and she sent me a copy of her questions.
One of the things that she asked was my contact info on goodreads - which I didn't know about until then. So I immediately joined and asked to be enrolled as an author.

Some weeks ago I had thought about contacting HarperOne to see if they might add my book, (Adventures with the Master), to their catalogue, and had even gone so far as to recreate my 'From Words to Worlds', (publisher), net site, (www.fromwordstoworlds.com), so it would look more professional.

Wednesday night I took the plunge and phoned them up, asking for a contact e-mail address. I got through to the publicity department that suggested that I write to them and they would pass my request on.

Two days and two e-mails later, I got a formal refusal. My reaction surprised me, 'it would have been too easy if it had worked like that', - how's that for a strong defense mechanism??

So, I am now feeling quite positive, and enjoying the benefits of having found goodreads, and all you nice people.

So, to all you 'young' writers out there, you are not alone in your fight to be read and to be known, but you just gotta keep fighting.

All the best

Gary