After-Publish Blues
Hello everyone! My name is Chelsie Denoia and for those of you who don’t know already, my novel ‘Sovereign’ made its debut on July 5th of this year. The pre-orders and first week of sales went way better than I ever could have imagined. But then that was it. I got a few of the, “Congratulations on publishing your book!” and “You’re officially an Author now! Congratulations!”
Of course the high of that only lasted a day or two. Because yeah I’m “Officially” an Author. But nothing changed.
My husband is happy for me, ecstatic even! But it doesn’t stop our everyday life. He still goes to work and I still stay at home and care for the house and our two boys, both of which do not care about my debut as an Author, much less know what the word debut or Author even mean. They just know they want food, juice, tv time, and mommy play time. Nothing else matters.
Now, I wasn’t delusional enough to believe that my life would flip upside down after releasing my first book. I knew it wasn’t going to break any records and I was okay with that. But here I am, exactly a month later, wondering, “What now?” I mean obviously I begin working on book two and have been brainstorming a few other book ideas. But something else is nagging at me and I can’t place a finger on it.
We could say it’s self-doubt? But I already know I have that. Like, yeah Sovereign is a good book (So I’ve been told.) But I look around at my fellow Authors like Em Fyre, JoJo Bee, Skye Erikson, Perci Jay (I can go on) all of whom are very talented and have written incredible books and are such great marketers and then I look at myself. Who do I think I am? I’m not just going to turn into this big notarized Author overnight. So what if I only have 5 reviews on Goodreads and Amazon? They aren’t terrible. Plus, it’s only been a month. The reviews will come. The readers will come.
I tell myself these things all the time. But I still wonder if I should have waited a little longer. If I should have tried to write more. Was it enough? Do people really like it? Or are they only telling me these things because they don’t want to hurt my feelings and crush my dreams? I ask myself these questions all of the time. Of course they will never be answered and honestly, I don’t NEED to know them.
What I have learned over the last month is that After Publish Blues is a thing, and most, if not all, Authors go through it. It is natural to doubt yourself and your abilities. You are your worst critic. I AM a published Author. I put in the work, I created this magical world and these fictional characters and people LOVE them (Or at least they say they do). So, I'm going to hold that close to my heart, and keep writing and publishing my books. Because my work matters, there are people out there waiting for my story to be told, they just don’t know it yet.
