The GIF Illustrated Guide to the Emotional States of First Book Publication

On Wednesday, September 1, I published my first novel, Oil and Dust. Here is a humorous (but accurate) accounting of my emotional states throughout the week. Use this guide to giggle your way into your weekend, or to better prepare for your own launch week.

Monday’s Emotional State:

My eyes sprang open at 3 am, and I whirled about in a flurry of activity all day.

My whirling came to a momentary halt when I realized I couldn’t update my interior book files with the new content warnings until after publication, but I was able to update the content for the paperback and large print editions I had queued up on Amazon.

I burned most of the day creating banners, making marketing images, checking ARC reviews, and delving into book marketing sites, but somehow, I managed to finish revising a chapter on Book 2 (twelve chapters left!).

Tuesday’s Emotional State:

Like a little kid on Christmas day, I woke up at 4:30, flooded with excited, nervous energy. I read for a while, played with the dog, and organized store links in a spreadsheet.

A few ARC reviews from Netgalley posted, including this amazing review: https://booksbyyourbedside.org/2021/08/31/oil-and-dust-the-elemental-artist-jami-fairleigh/.

The rest of the day was a blur of clicking through the 3,267 tabs I had open in my Chrome browsers.

Around 8 pm, email notifications from the online retailers started coming in, assuring me my book was live on their sites. This gave me a jolt; my book was “published” in the future, but I was still in the past! Time zones get me every time.

Wednesday’s Emotional State:

My eyes snapped awake at 3:30, and my first thought was to hit “publish” for Amazon paperback and large print versions.

At a more reasonable hour, I sent emails to my subscriber list, the ARC reader team, and posted to my social media accounts.

Next, I spent a large part of the day trying to figure out how to create an email signature that included multiple images with clickable URLs.

With wild abandon, I fell down the HTML rabbit hole, and even tried to figure out SVG syntax. Don’t ask me why it was suddenly critical I figure it out. When I finally admitted defeat, I used a free email signature generator from Mail Signatures, and even managed to revise another chapter of Book 2 (eleven chapters left!).

By this time, Doug was done with work, so we went for a walk. Part way along usual our three-mile loop, I had a meltdown and bawled, unconsolable, sure I’d completely messed up the only first-book-publication-day I’d ever had. What had I forgotten? Had I done everything I was supposed to do to launch the book? Was the whole endeavor a flaming pile of garbage??

Have you ever put way too much expectation on an event, then freaked out about it? Yeah, me too neither.

After he scraped me off of the pavement, I pulled it together, took a shower, put on real clothes and mascara, and took a picture to commemorate the day. We finished the night with take-out sushi, champagne, and my emotional meltdown even scored me a bouquet of flowers.

Okay, Doug said he’d always planned to get me flowers, but I suspect the tears helped.

Thursday’s Emotional State:

The plan was to spend all day revising Book 2 (eleven chapters left!!) but then… my hardcovers arrived! They are beautiful, and we took several moments to admire them.

Instead of revisions, I spent most of the day figuring out the best way to ship books. Or at least the best way to ship large, heavy books. After looking at shipping services, I decided to use Paypal shipping with media mail. I also learned it’s not financially feasible to ship signed copies internationally. Even shipping to Vancouver BC, which is less than 150 miles away, was $45 for a box of two books.

I’d read on a couple of sites you should *not* use your normal sign-checks or sign-mortgage-closing-papers signature on your books, so I spent a chunk of time figuring out an “author” signature. As awkward and foolish as it felt to do so, I do not believe Stephen King signs his mortgage papers like this, so I’m in good company.

Signing my books felt really good, like slipping into clean sheets, or finding a forgotten $20 bill in last year’s winter coat pocket, or smelling freshly baked bread.

I also calculated out the revenue for selling a book. When you add up each book’s unit cost (printing plus shipping) plus the packaging, postage, sales tax, payment service fees, and extras (book mark and thank you note) and subtract it from the retail price, you realize you really write because you love to write. 🙄

After I’d dropped the books off for shipping, I submitted a short story to an anthology, received good news from an editor (announcement coming soon!), enjoyed the #PitMad craziness, and worked on revisions for Book 2 (ten chapters left!).

Friday’s Emotional State:

Although I was wide awake by 5:00 am this morning, I feel like myself again. This week, I learned publishing a book for the first time is (or can be) a wild, emotional ride.

I also learned it takes much more time to publish and market a book than I’d expected. My sleep-deprived brain was partly responsible, but the effort related to responding to the slew of emails and social media replies was eye-opening. Because of this, I’m glad I took the week off—my brain would have been rubbish if I’d been attempting to concentrate on my job throughout all of this.

My house is a wreck, but since I’m sure I’ll be looking for reasons to procrastinate revisions (ten chapters left!), I’ll get the house cleaned up before I go back to work on Tuesday.

My biggest takeaway? While I believe in celebrating writing wins, it didn’t occur to me I’d want an occasion to mark the moment.

Can you tell I’m an introvert? INFP, all the way, baby.

In hindsight, I wished I’d set up a dinner or, at the very least, a zoom call to celebrate with the people I care about. Happily, my dad reached out to set a date for a celebratory dinner next week, so at least I have more to look forward too! So plan yourself a party, order a cake, and celebrate your accomplishment.

Have you published your first book? What was your experience?

Header Photo by Matt Bowden on Unsplash