GENREALITY

This week has been a little nuts.

I had a book come out.
I’ve been going every night to see a Harry Potter marathon–8 movies in 4 nights.
I’ve been slaving away on my next book during the daylight hours.

The cool thing is, seeing two movies a night, that’s up to 5 hours a night I am distracted from thinking about release week sales, and are my books getting into stores, and are people finding them, and omg someone just tweeted she’s been to three stores and none of them had my book…

I’m sure it was sold out already. Right?

You can do a lot to help a book along by promoting it effectively. But one thing that will not help a book sell better? Worrying about it and obsessively checking your Amazon numbers four times a day. Believe me, I know. If worrying and obsessing made a difference, I’d be multiple NYT bestseller by now.

The only thing you can truly control is the product.

I’ll wait while you repeat that after me.

It applies when you are trying to sell a manuscript as well. You have two choices: spend all day on Twitter trying to decipher the secret code for what editors really want, interspersed with comment on every industry professional’s blog to establish a professional rapport with them, while taking breaks every hour or so to check the mailbox for rejection letters.

Or you could write another book. Maybe a better book! Or maybe just something else for your arsenal.

The only thing you have complete control over is writing a great book. And the way you write a great book is to sit your butt in the chair and write. And write some more. And sometimes you throw things out (or a lot of times, if you’re me) but you keep writing something new to replace it.

Of course, sometimes you also have to take breaks for Harry Potter movie marathons.

Accio laptop! I’m back to work today.

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