A Tense Release

When you have your first book out you cross your fingers and hope for sales. You check Amazon for sales ratings and scroll the lists on the third party distributors, all the while a little tense and a little worried. But even if it does kind of okay you're grateful that someone, somewhere actually brought a copy! At least one person read your book, so be grateful!

Then the second one comes out and it does a little better and you start feeling like you might be growing an audience, so there isn't too much pressure really, you're growing bit by bit and that's all good... the worry eases a little.

Then the third come out, and within a week hits two different best seller lists. You can barely believe it and you refresh the various web pages every hour, shocked to see your book there as a 'hot featured title', 'best selling romance' and such. It's an amazing feeling, almost impossible to describe.

So okay, you had a best seller, time to write the next one. You do, and you send to your publisher, and she accepts it, and then before you know it release day arrives. But it's different now. Wildly different. Because it's not like the early days where you were kind of sanguine about it all. No, you've had a best seller... so you have to have another!
You can't be a one hit wonder, you can't do crappy with this one. Oh no, it must do as well as the other, if not better.

The worry begins, the tenseness. I spent most of last night pacing, and accosting random family members to gather their views. "Do you think it will hit the best seller lists?" I ask chappie. "Ermmm... yeah," he says.
"Yes, but how do you know?" I demand.
"I don't, but ermm.... well... ermmm." Cue him slidling out the room.

"Vix," I say to my oldest as she innocently passes by to grab her homework. "What if it doesn't hit the lists?"
She shrugs. "Whatever."
"No, but seriously," I say. "What if--"
She shrugs. "No one cares but you, mom."

Then this morning came and my publisher emails me. It's up! It's on the sites! But I'm at work and I work for the state, and accessing romance websites so isn't going to fly. There's me feverishly pulling up the distributors on my smart phone and squinting at the screen.

Nothing so far... nothing to give any indication either way... God, it's going to be a tense few days...