The good news: I’m in the middle of publishing my FIRST CHILDREN’S BOOK!!!!
The bad news: I have no idea what I’m doing and it’s causing some anxiety. OK, alternating levels of anxiety. On one hand, I’m excited! I’ve been wanting to publish a book for years! The little girl version of me who would type out short stories on her dad’s old word processor is jumping for joy! Then I started researching…
Man…millions upon millions of children’s books are published each…year…
I joined support groups online to get tips and advice on how to market, promote, sell, etc. etc etc. And while I got some good info, I also got discouraged!
I’m trying to juggle the inner back-and-forth of wanting to be proud and excited and ambitious with the self-doubt, managing expectations, identifying what’s realistic and not, and the dialogue from other authors that tell me not to get my hopes up about book sales.
This finally came to a head when I had a mini meltdown planning my launch party. I went from gung-ho and “all in” to screw this it’s doomed anyway. A good night’s sleep and talking it out with my work bestie got me back to my equilibrium.
This is one of my biggest struggles – the constant back and forth of my thoughts. I want to be positive so I think positive thoughts. Then my fear and doubt creep in…then it’s negative. It’s all the bad things that have happened in the past and why things won’t be better in the future. Then I try to dispute the negative thoughts with the positive thoughts. But at this point I can’t convince myself and the cynical side of me is just sitting there with her arms folded and a snarky smirk saying “Oh really?”
It seems so much easier and safer to be cynical and snarky and negative. I can’t be disappointed that it failed if I knew all along it was going to fail. The fall isn’t nearly as far if I’m standing on a step stool rather than the top of a ladder.
I was always told to beat negative thinking you have to retrain your brain by thinking 3 positive thoughts for every negative thought. And it’s always been a difficult chore to complete. I will never believe I’m beautiful when I’ve thought and heard my whole life that I was ugly. And maybe it’s more realistic for me to focus on different outcomes.
Instead of focusing on tangible outcomes like number of books sold, profit/loss, etc. I’ll focus on the reason why I thought the book was so important to publish. The subjective reasons. Wanting children to read a certain message, making a difference in the lives of children and their mental health, and being proud of an accomplishment – checking an item off my bucket list.
If you can’t look at a positive you don’t believe, shift your focus.
WORK IN PROGRESS! 2023!
Unbound Light 