Doubts and Fears

Date August 10, 2015 Author By John Thompson Category Brindavan Chronicles, Publishing, Writing

After the euphoria of seeing your work in print for the first time has worn off a little, the doubts and fears begin to creep in. I guess this is natural in self-publishing, for a writer lucky enough to have gone the traditional route will have had perhaps an agent and certainly an editor who will have looked at the work and deemed it good enough to publish.

But the self-published author, however, will not have gone through this process. Now the doubts begin to arise. Is what I have written really good enough? Have I merely indulged my vanity by publishing something meretricious? There are fears too. Will someone who buys the book be so angry at what he/she regards as a waste of money on some worthless piffle that they publish an excoriating review on Amazon which then deters anyone else from buying it?

So it’s really encouraging to get some positive feedback. One expects friends who may have bought your book out of a sense of friendship to be nice to you, even if they didn’t like the story, and perhaps to damn you with faint praise. However, two family friends have responded in almost identical terms: “couldn’t put it down”, “a real page-turner”, and “can’t wait for ‘Nemesis’ to be published.’ These were, however, friends, and one always takes such comments with a pinch of reservation.

However, someone I have never met, who is a Facebook friend of my wife, responded in identical terms, so my ego is beginning to inflate a little!

Incidentally, ‘Nemesis’ has been completed. The plan is bring it out next year – but if sales of ‘Genesis’ go through the roof (Yes, I know, very likely!), then we may be able to bring it out earlier.

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