Gauntlet Returned

It’s strange to think what can happen in two weeks. Or maybe not. If anything, the passage of time since January 24th has showed me that anything can happen. Sometimes these things happen because one makes a determination to stop waiting and, with a gasp of breath, take a step out of the seeming safety of monotony. And then… as these past two weeks have also shown… sometimes things happen all on their own… and upset life without any effort at all.

The step I finally took was one that had been agitating my foot for well over a year. I talked myself in and out of risk, tried another path (though probably not with enough devotion to get very far), and ended up finding myself stuck immobile in a spot for… who knows how long? I forget now. I forget the doubts and the wavering. I only know that I decided at the start of this year that I was going to publish my book.

So I started another blog to release the first ten chapters, one post at a time. It was difficult, a few times, to not just let them go all at once. Impatience isn’t very useful in building suspense. Nor was it very helpful in buying me time to put a final coat of polish on the manuscript. Or think of a cover. Or figure out how to format it. But… snow days probably accelerated the process. And then, swiftly, without giving myself enough thought to second guess, I published the thing on Smashwords.

Relatively easy. In spite of the boulder size lump in my throat when I put it out there. It’s one thing to ask someone to read my book. For free. As a favor. But to tease them with unfinished business and then ask them to pay money for it… that… really… that took a lot for me to do. In spite of the fact I’ve been telling people to come see a play for which I’ve run sound (or maybe directed but made no visible appearance) or made a one line cameo… and spend five times the amount of money I’m asking for my book. It still… goes against something in myself. But… I think it was a good thing to push. And I’m very glad I’ve done it.

So once I did that, I figured out how to get it onto more notable sites like Amazon – and today – Barnes and Noble. So readers can buy it for the Kindle or Nook (in case you didn’t already deduce that). And it’s out there. My two years of labor and channeled emotion is out there for the whole wide world to read and buy and judge.

I hope.

Because… well, this is the foot of the mountain. I have a handful of friends who say they like the book, on a page on Facebook. That means a lot. But only a quarter of them will buy it… as is the custom of percentages in any invitation to observe one’s art. Indeed, it may be a better percentage than have taken up my solicitation to come to the theater. And once those friends have bought it… I need to find other non-friends who will buy it, too. A lot of strangers. Who don’t owe me any favors.

And it scares me.

But there is no turning back now. It is out there. I’ve written this thing to completion and must get back to writing the next book.

 

Tomorrow, I’m reading the book, to test a real life marketing scheme… and to celebrate a little. I probably have more stage fright about that than I’ve had over any scene in a costume or tour for a Henry Davis Sleeper expert. But… well… what’s the point of running from the things that scare me? Or force me to do something differently?

Because, that is the lesson from the other abrupt event of the last two weeks. Life is a limited opportunity. We can spend the hours wishing and hoping something will happen. Or we can go out there, fall a few times, bruise our hearts, and then… somewhere along the way… find out someone likes our story. Enough to read it. Enough to pay money for it. Enough to say they want more.

If you want to hear a piece of this story, come to K.J. Barron’s in Worcester tomorrow at 7. Watch my face turn red as the wine in my glass.