Disaster and Depression: A Toddler Mishap

I have avoided posting this because, in all honesty, I have been avoiding the very thought of it. Maybe I've also been in denial...

It seems almost fated this would happen - the irresistible combination of having a toddler in residence, me possessing a relatively new laptop and, in hindsight, the misfortune of not having my work backed up - leading to the inevitable disaster.

About a week ago, still reveling in our victory with the One Week Challenge, Imaginary Self, going live on Amazon... my daughter decided to help herself and dumped an entire pitcher of water on my laptop. We tried our damnedest to dry it out - hoping it would resuscitate - but no luck. It's deader than Disco.

This happened at a time when we cannot, financially, afford to replace it or even to get it repaired. We are still behind on our bills after my maternity leave (because New York Maternity laws and pay suck ASS!) There is a distinct and depressing possibility that I may have lost all my writing and work from the past six months. We can only hope that when we are able to get the laptop serviced they will be able to retrieve the documents from the hard drive. If not, this will effectively halt and doom my goal of having the novel completed and publishable by next February. If the writing cannot be salvaged, I will be forced to start over again and truthfully, I don't have the heart for it right now. The loss has crushed me.

There is this deep seeded dread for any creative mind, of losing work we are really happy with and proud of. There was half a year (a fairly productive half year too) worth of work at stake. If lost, I fear I would be inclined to step away from it for a great while. It's like trying not to think about a recently deceased loved one - every reminder sinking you into sadness. I haven't decided what to do yet. Perhaps this is the denial at work - in my mind I keep hoping it's a bad dream and the computer screen will flicker on with a big flashing screen saying "Fooled Ya! LOL" or some shit.

For now, I am doing what I usually do when depression pulls me in that slow sucking cycle - distracting myself with cleaning... (I know - how domestically unlike me, right?) When I figure out my next step, I will let you know.

The Publishing Experience - What I learned last week.

I met the One Week Challenge, though technically it took me two weeks to get "Imaginary Self - A Short Story" up. I finished the first draft, as well as the editing, by the deadline; however, when we started trying to get the finishing touches on, we started having issues.

First, the original cover art my husband created wasn't working out. Halfway through creation we decided neither of us really liked it, and it didn't convey the aspects of the story that we wanted - so we scrapped it last minute and started from scratch. For those of you who like "Easter Eggs", the face used in the image is mine. It was unbelievably cool watching him distort, crack and dissipate my face for the cover! Kind of like doing a really dramatic make-up effect on Halloween.

The formatting wasn't too hard, since it's a short story, and I use the Scrivener program, which makes it insanely easy. I did have a few things that needed to be adjusted once I started uploading to Amazon, but it wasn't anything major.

We started the process of uploading to Amazon on September 4th. The formatting issues were easy to fix through the preview function but the cover was showing up completely inverted - like a negative on a color photograph (you remember those right? Before digital photos took over the world lol!) It took awhile to figure out that the .Tiff image wasn't getting read properly. Still not certain why. We changed it to a .Jpeg and it corrected. Unfortunately, we lost some of the vibrancy in the cover's color when we changed the file-type. The background was originally a stunning shade of maroon, but it still looks pretty cool regardless, so I won't complain too much.

I decided to sell it for 99¢ since it's a short story - roughly 24 pages (Amazon says 22, but whatever...) I don't think it makes sense to sell a short for more than that. Granted, I'm only making 35¢ per book, but that seems sufficient for the length.

We finished the uploading process on September 5th and it took about 18 hours to complete, officially going live on Thursday morning, September 6th. After going live, I started trying to get the word out - my marketing has been limited. I posted on my Facebook, here on my blog, added it to Goodreads, plugged it on Google+ and Twitter, spread across the past few days. So far the Amazon report says I've sold 6 copies, though I've been told by many more people that they've gotten a copy. Amazon states that the report updates automatically, but after further digging, I found out it updates as payments are processed, not necessarily when a book is purchased. I'm interested to see how the number of copies sold updates after the weekend when banks and credit cards usually process weekend purchases and take them out of pending status.

It has been a pretty great and informative experience so far. Going through the self-publishing process from start to finish has been highly encouraging. Now that I'm better acquainted with it, I'm eager and ready to get back to work on my novel to get "Firechild" up there alongside it.

Imaginary Self - Release

When a young woman receives an email invitation to a salacious website, she has no idea that her desolate life is about to change forever. She’s given 48 hours to find her “companion” before she ceases to exist - the only problem is, she hasn’t left her apartment in years. Can she overcome her greatest fear before she loses herself completely?


Check it out on Amazon for only 99¢

And remember: If you read it, REVIEW IT! Reviews are an Author's best friend!