Another Year, Another Unpublished Book?
So, we’re into month two (A.K.A February) of 2022, and there are no signs of a book being published any time soon. Considering I started this blog in 2019, and had every intention of becoming an author with a published book by the end of that year, to now be in 2022 and seemingly no closer to this goal, is something worthy of reflection.
Will this finally be the year it happens?
I honestly don’t know. In theory all the pieces are there – I have a book. I have a cover. I have a KDP account. I even have a website (in progress). Yet, putting these pieces together is confounding me more than a 1000 piece jigsaw of a clear blue sky.
Sure, there are a few edits that are still needed on the book, and it would certainly need proofreading before it went out into the big wide world. So, those are some of the practical things I need to deal with. But, compared to writing an entire manuscript, those are pretty minor.
So too, are the logistics of actually publishing a thing. Upload a cover, upload the manuscript. Easy. Finish off the website. Simple. Get the marketing plan together. Slightly trickier, but certainly not impossible.
What, then, is holding me back?
Yep, you guessed it – my old friend self-doubt. How I wish I was the fearless sort, someone who doesn’t care what other people think, or worry about failure. But it’s not who I am. And despite all the work I’ve been doing to address my self-doubt, it’s not easy to do.
The most frustrating bit is that the only thing that will really help overcome the self-doubt is publishing the damn book. Only by doing that can I actually find out what it’s like to do.
At the moment, all the outcomes are just floating around in my head – mega success, phenomenal failure, and everything in between. I have no idea what might happen when I finally hit ‘publish’ on Amazon. I don’t know if people will buy the book, like the book, even notice the book. I don’t know if I’ll make any money from it, or whether it will be a huge waste of my time and financial investment. I don’t know whether it will bring me the joy and pride I imagine it will. I don’t know if it will lead to me writing, finishing, and publishing more books.
I don’t know any of this. I don’t know what the outcome will be. Which makes it scary.
Not doing anything is much more comfortable than taking the plunge, because I know what will happen if I do nothing – nothing. Nothing will happen. Nothing will change. Which is both frustrating and reassuring.
But is the comfort of doing nothing worth missing out on the potential joy and excitement that could come from doing something? The self-doubt part of me says yes. But the part that hungers for more says ‘no, definitely not.’ Even if things weren’t to go as I dreamed (i.e. no mega success or huge riches) then at the very least I’d learn something from the experience. And shouldn’t that be enough in itself? Shouldn’t I be motivated by and excited about the sense of pride I could carry just for having tried?
Yes to both those questions. So, as I write this, I’m hoping it helps flick that switch from scary, to exciting. Maybe this won’t be yet another year, another unpublished book. Maybe this is the year that I make something happen. Maybe it’s the year I finally take the plunge…
Maybe we’ll just have to wait and see.
Becoming an Author 