Book Babying It – Part Five: On the Way to the Amazon

Today I finally decided to check my status on Book Baby to gauge the progress of Virtually Yours.

Yes, I am the most lackadaisical writer/author you’ll ever meet. I’m not one of those who clicks back and forth for a progress report. I’m from the old school: A watched pot never boils.

(In case you were wondering, My virtual book will hit Amazon in a couple of days. *WHEE!* For the other vendors, like Nook and iBookstore, it could be a few weeks.)

My reaction? Meh…

Besides never watching a boiling pot (and this is hard to admit), there’s a part of me that just can’t believe I’ve done this.

Come on, admit you feel the same way.

I’m a writer-wannabe. I dream of writing fine literature, and I practice constantly, but I come to the craft with a deficit. I don’t have weighty credentials behind my name. I have written stories ever since my mother handed me a pencil, but thanks to my own poor economy, I didn’t finish college. I thought it was more important to have a roof over my head and an occasional dinner. I’m a late starter, only beginning to write “seriously” after the kids grew up and moved away, so there was a twenty year gap between the last “serious” thing I wrote (a poem for my husband, coincidentally) and the next “serious” thing I wrote (my first novel).

I’ve been writing online (in some way or another) for years. (YEARS and years and years. Google me, and be amazed.) There have been times when the criticism has ranged from ho-hum-yawn to flat out excoriation. But I can take it – obviously, or I wouldn’t still be here. I know some people won’t like my work at all and that doesn’t bother me in the least. Virtually Yours is not literary fiction. Puh-leeze. I wrote it in thirty days, during NaNoWriMo 2009. It’s a light and silly beach read, which I hope is mildly entertaining to most of the people who enjoy light and silly beach reads.

So now I’m looking at ways of tooting my horn and announcing to the world that my baby is due to be hatched, without looking like I’m a narcissistic huckster pushing a product. Book Baby sent me some great articles on how to do just that.

Once I finish the yard work, I might take a look at those articles. (Lackadaisically, of course.) Because I’m a realist, I know that just launching a book doesn’t mean I hit the lottery and can afford to quit my day job – or my duties.

Off to the fields! More spouting when Virtually Yours is ready.