Releasing My Novel

April 27, 2023

It is not ironic but in fact perfectly logical that attempting to publish a book about a man whose greatest fear is other people looking at him has caused me such suffering and anguish. As much as I feel like I’ve grown since being a terrified 19 year-old who couldn’t open the .doc of his own resume without wanting to throw up, I did open the .xcf file of the cover image of my book this Monday morning and promptly curled into a ball and listened to Modest Mouse for just over an hour.

All of the steps involved in self-publishing a book nowadays are remarkably easy. Amazon and Kobo provide simple web forms with blank spaces where you fill in the title, description, keywords, etc. You upload a .pdf of your book, a .jpg of the cover art, and there you go. There’s even a little web application that will help you design your cover if you don’t already have one. One could easily accomplish all of these tasks in a day or two.

However, things grow tricky when one's ego is involved.

I couldn’t apply for jobs as a teenager because I didn’t like the idea of someone looking at a piece of paper with my information on it, conducting a hasty interview with the nervous wreck that is job-hunting-Mike, and making a judgment about my fitness for a particular position. That whole process made me deeply uncomfortable. The idea that, after that, I would then have to be trained for the job, with all the discomfort and unpleasantness that comes with learning something from a a person who doesn’t really want to teach you, spoiled the whole thing entirely.

This was the initial response. It’s a touch over-emotional, but not entirely unreasonable, all told. Just the regular old fears that come with putting yourself out there and trying something new. The trouble comes during the next phase, where these concrete fears are amalgamated into an abstract fear, a fear that has no particular form or content and therefore no limit to its growth. This fear is a fear of Everything. So, when your dad says, “Just go hand in your resume. What’s the worst that could happen?” and you say, “Well, nothing really,” and he says, “There you go,” it doesn’t really make much of a difference. The realization that nothing is going to happen doesn’t help anymore, because the fear doesn’t require anything to happen. Nothing happening is just as scary at this point. Everything is scary. Just existing at all is scary.

At this point, fear isn’t even the right word. I don’t even know if there is a right word. Anguish? Distress? Psychological torment? You’re at the bottom of a big pit, and you don’t like it down there, but you also never want to leave. Doing what you’re supposed to do (making your resume, handing it to people) has become impossible, but also not doing it is equally impossible, because not doing it means an eternal continuation of this life at the bottom of a pit. In this case, the dispassionate observer may suggest, “Well, if either option’s as bad as the other, you may as well just go apply for jobs.” To this I would reply that no one has ever climbed out of a pit by thinking, “Well, I may as well climb out of this pit.” That’s just not how that happens.

This is how things that are easy become difficult. The trouble with easy things that become difficult is that even when you finally buckle up and accomplish them, it doesn’t feel like much of an achievement, because when you look back at the actual actions you undertook, they’re quite simple. I eventually got a job by walking into a store and giving a man my resume. He asked me around three questions, one of which was about ice hockey, and then he hired me. In my life, I’ve gone through this process four times. All four times, it went almost exactly the same way. However, it wasn’t until the fourth time that I shook the feeling that it was going to kill me. It’s now been five years since then, and when I think about doing it again, I’m no longer convinced. There’s the very real possibility that it might kill me.

Filling out all the forms required to self-publish a book has taken me multiple months. This is not because they are difficult, but because they are easy. It is disconcerting that something as difficult as releasing a work you’ve spent three years working on and have sunk your whole heart into should be so easy. Emotionally, it is one of the most difficult ideas I have ever have to come to terms with.

There are many reasons for this. Very few of them make any sense. I have many fears connected with the release of this novel. Very few of them make any sense. Sometimes, I imagine people I haven’t talked to in years getting mad at me because I didn’t tell them I was releasing my novel. That’s how desperate I am to come up with any reason why I shouldn’t do this.

So, since most of my fears come from people misunderstanding why I do what I do or feel how I feel, maybe it’s best if I simply explain why I’m publishing my book tomorrow, and why I’m doing it in the way that I am.

ONE: WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS BOOK?

I wrote this book in order to understand and explain my fears. I wrote it with the knowledge that there are other people who feel the way I do, and that the worst part about having feelings is believing you’re the only person who has ever felt them.

The book features a particularly extreme type of person. Some people may not believe that such a person can be real. Hopefully, by reading the book, they will be convinced of the reality of such a person.

TWO: WHY ARE YOU SELF-PUBLISHING THIS BOOK?

From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem like traditional publishing would make sense for me or the book. The whole process would make me lose my mind for several years on end, and the pay-off of potentially reaching more people and selling more copies would not be worth the pain. My goal is not to sell a lot of copies or make a lot of money. If it was, I’d do something else. I just want my book to be available.

THREE: WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO WRITE A WHOLE ESSAY EXPLAINING WHY YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING SO PERFECTLY REASONABLE AS PUBLISHING A BOOK THAT YOU WROTE?

No comment.

FOUR: WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT?

Paul Samson has been obsessed with the idea of true love since he was a young child. After a series of fleeting elementary school crushes, Paul finally meets the Girl of His Dreams. Unfortunately, he meets her in a dream. When he wakes up, Paul is convinced that love and dreams are each as imaginary as each other. That is, until many years later, when he once again comes across the Girl of His Dreams, and this time she’s all too real.

FIVE: HOW DO I BUY THE BOOK?

The book will be available on Amazon and Kobo as an e-book starting tomorrow. It is digital-only for the time being, but there is the possibility I will release a paperback edition in the future.

Tomorrow, I will post another update to this website in which I introduce the book in a more marketable way, which will include an excerpt and links to all the store pages.

CONCLUSION

Well, when I put it all like that, it seems to make a certain amount of sense. I’m publishing my novel because I want to, in the way I feel comfortable, and at the time that’s right for me. It’s a big step disguised as not a big deal. It’s an easy step, made difficult, and then undertaken easily.

If you enjoy this website, I sure hope you check out the book.

BALCKWELL RISING!!