This is a bit of a funny one.
So just recently, as outlined in my last post, I got a big boost in readers for my online story, which I’m tentatively thinking of as The Legend of Jerry. Do you like that name? I like it. Reminds me of The Legend of Drizzt, which contains some of my favorite stories from when I was a much younger man.
Anyways, so I’ve encountered a little conundrum. I’m getting close to the end of the current entry in the series, Jerry and the Tradecraft. In fact, I’ve written the first part of the big climax, already. Kind of an intro to it, in a way. With the end near, I recently explained my plans to one of my readers in my discord.
As soon as I’m done with this story, I plan to stop writing so much for a little bit. I’m going to put out a few vignettes, before I begin my next long-form project. In the meantime, I’m going to be working on organizing and categorizing the lore of this world (hopefully, with the help of some readers) and getting it all sorted out and organized in a place, where both I and my readers can easily access it, and I can easily update it as needed.
I also plan to begin trying to work up a cover for the first story, so I can publish it. I’ve recently finished an editing pass, fixing some spelling and grammatical errors, as well as smoothing over some bumpy continuity. With the help of my beta readers, I really hope to have a polished manuscript. I’m going to try my hand at querying with it (for the first time ever, which is a little nerve-wracking all on its own).
But the thing is, I know I’m going to lose some readers at that point, and with that big boost recently, that’s really more scary now than it would have been just a few weeks ago.
It doesn’t help that October was (also as mentioned in my last post) my best month so far for my self-published sci-fi series. I sold more copies and had more pages read on Kindle Unlimited in that month than in the several months prior.
And as they say, you’re not scared of loss until you’ve got something to lose.
I know that next month’s sales and pages read will probably be worse. One of my ad campaigns is ended, and I’m deciding right now whether to continue it. It had been costing me money to run my ad campaigns (though not all that much), and I finally broke even on money spent on advertising last month. Though to be fair, I actually did better than break even, all things considered. I’ve actually made a profit, if you can believe that.
But I’m scared of next month. I know I shouldn’t be. I’m in a better position now than I was last month, and my conscious mind knows that I’ll most likely be in an even better position, month after next. Hell, there’s a chance my self-pubbed books will continue selling, even. That would be awesome!
But I’m not counting on it. I’m gonna wallow in worry for a bit. Because that way, I won’t be disappointed if things don’t go my way, but I might be pleasantly surprised if things go well, anyways.
So knock on wood, for me.