Reflecting Back on 2016 as My First Year as a Published Author
by John Quick,
author of Consequences
It’s weird for
me to consider this, but I actually now have a back-catalog. It
consists of one book, but still, it counts. And it’s pretty
surreal. Which got me to thinking (I know, oh crap, he’s thinking
again….).
When I first hit
the “publish” button on Consequences back in April, I had
no idea what I was in for. Oh, I’d convinced myself I knew, but I
really didn’t. See, no matter how much research you do, no matter
how many people you talk to, no one can truly prepare you for that
feeling right after you send your first tale out for other people to
read. People you don’t know, or that never knew you even were
considering being a writer, much less had something so close to
release. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, depending on what
they hope to get out of it, but for me, who hoped this would be a
springboard to a long-term career, it was a gut-punch of reality.
“What was I
thinking?” “What if no one buys it?” “What if everyone who
buys it, hates it?” “I must really be nuts, I can’t believe
I’ve done this.”
That’s a small
taste of what ran through my mind in the hour after I hit “publish”
in CreateSpace and waited for the links to go live on Amazon. I’d
heard the whole “writing is a lonely profession” line before, and
now, suddenly, I understood completely. It’s different when you’ve
got a team working with you, editors and marketing and cover designer
and the like; you act as cheerleaders for one another to a large
degree. But for me, at that time, I was all I had. My family and
friends had my back, sure, but it’s not quite the same. I wish I
could say I handled the affair stoically (even though I’ve already
indicated I didn’t), but the truth is that within an hour of
hitting “publish”, I was stumbling drunk and fighting a case of
the shakes so bad it only served to multiply the effects of the
whiskey. How fragile was my emotional state? I went from all of that
to laughing like a nut simply because I got a friend request from one
of the authors that heavily influenced the book on Facebook. Flipped
on a dime, all over that.
After a couple of
days, the panic and mania faded, and I was able to push forward. I
started making contacts, I started figuring out the things I needed
to do in order to make Consequences as successful as I possibly
could, all while knowing I was fighting the uphill battle that comes
from self-publishing, even with how accepted the practice has become
nowadays. I started making connections in the horror community, all
of whom were supportive, even though they really didn’t know
anything about me. They saw I was trying, and that I was serious
about making it work, and that was enough. I found an incredible
publicist, who was not only willing to take me on as a client, but
also taught me what to do and how to do it and how to make it work
more effectively.
And somewhere
along the lines, friendships were forged where I never expected them
to be. I’m a bit old-school, so the concept of becoming friends
with someone who I only interact with only online was strange, but I
have to say it was extremely welcomed.
And Consequences
started to become the little book that could. Reviews began to come
in, and to my surprise and delight, they were good! I’d worried for
nothing. Even the ones that found faults in the book were things I’d
wondered about myself at various times while it was being written,
and were constructive enough I took them to heart and put them to use
in the other things I worked on. Somewhere in there I landed a
contract with one of the best horror small presses to ever release a
book, Sinister Grin, for the follow-up novel.
Suddenly,
everything I’d dreamed of—once I settled into realistic goals for
being published, that is—started to come true. I wasn’t about to
become a multi-millionaire through writing, but I’d sold copies to
people I didn’t know, and strangers had enjoyed the story I’d
crafted. For me, that was reward enough.
As the fervor
that immediately followed the release began to die down, I started
looking toward what came next. The Sinister Grin novel wouldn’t be
released until the middle of next year, so there was a gap where I
worried that momentum I’d built up might slow. So the idea came to
do another self-published release, something to tide people over
until The Journal of Jeremy Todd was revealed to the world.
I’d only
recently begun exploring writing shorter things at this point. For
whatever reason, the story ideas I came up with were too broad in
scope to be restricted to only a couple thousand words. I managed to
find a home for one of them, “In the Moonlit Forest Glade,” with
the Full Moon Slaughter anthology, but I had a few more floating
around that I wasn’t even sure where to look for placement. They
sat just outside easy definition, which is the opposite of what’s
needed for most anthology open calls. Then again, I did have
that gap and was looking for a way to fill it, so why not a
collection?
I pitched the
idea to some friends both in and out of the business, and got an
almost universal yes to it. My publicist, Erin, who is also an
editor, agreed to put those editorial skills to use on it, and so
Three Shots and a Chaser was conceived. I cleaned the stories
up, and added a wrap-around tale to tie it all together. I got a
cover together that looked incredible. The pieces were falling into
place, so I set a release date and started to brace myself for
another series of panic-induced sleepless nights.
Only a funny
thing happened. This time around, I didn’t feel alone. My family
weren’t the only ones sharing the announcements about this
collection on social media. I had people to talk to about issues
figuring out how to set up the pre-order on Kindle. I found that I
could reach out with questions and get answers easily when I needed
to. I had that team I’d been missing. I was self-publishing, but I
wasn’t doing it all by myself.
The release date
came, and instead of panic and doubt, I felt an incredible sense of
accomplishment. This time around, I got to ride the high, so to
speak, and actually feel some pride at having proved I wasn’t just
a one-trick pony when it came to putting things out there.
Some of this was
due to it no longer being a new experience, but I think there was
more to it than that. This time, I think, once the release date came,
all the rough edges and little worries that had built up during the
preparation for Consequences had been worn away by the support
and encouragement I felt along the way.
This has been a
rough year in many, many ways, but for me, it’s been incredible as
well. I had no idea when I made the decision that I would have
something published, no matter what, that this is where I’d be by
the time Christmas came around again. I would like to thank everyone
who’s supported me these past few months, whether it was just a
kind word, a “like” on a post or a tweet about Consequences
or Three Shots and a Chaser, or sharing the word however you
could. Maybe you didn’t feel like it was all that much, but what a
difference it made to me.
Enter
the GIVEAWAY for a Print Copy of Consequences!
Purchase
the e-copy on sale!
You
can purchase CONSEQUENCES at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E6B9ZV8