I pressed the button

The button in question is the Publish button, two in fact. One to publish the paperback and one to publish the Kindle version. I have to tell you, that was one of the hardest things I have done in a while. 

My first novel is now 'IN REVIEW' as you can see from this image. I could have spent the next year editing, revising and rereading but at some point you have to say "enough is enough" and let it go out into the world to fend for itself.

I have a wait of up to three days before I know if the book is on the market or back on my desk for further editing. That is, if the review turns up some formatting issue that Amazon objects to, it will bounce it back to me to fix. While I am waiting I am learning all I can about Amazon Ads. That is not as easy as it sounds, but also a lot more interesting that it sounds.

The problem with self-publishing is that you also have to do self-marketing, not so easy. As a first step, I need you all to follow me on my author page on Amazon. Apart from making me feel good, it will mean that as my books are released for sale, you will hear about it. I promise I will not spam you, but I need to get some hype going.

The sum total of the marketing I did for Peeling the Onion was to leave a copy sitting on my desk at work. Even then, if anyone showed an interest in it, I let them borrow that copy, so no sale there. That was not the only reason I never considered marketing as a career, but definitely a good one. I suck at it.

Once Caitlin's Escape Route is approved and out there, I hope that at least some of you will purchase it, and if you do, and if you manage to read it, please return to Amazon and leave a review. I don't mind if it is an honest one, in fact I would prefer if it were, any review is better than no reviews at all. Plus, I want to get better at this and an honest review, good or bad, will help me do that.

I actually got a few reviews for Peeling the Onion, despite no marketing. One was bad enough that I blogged about it here. As I said in that post, the reviewer bought the book, read it, and took the trouble to return and leave a review. That was something I had to be grateful for.

As soon as the book is available, I will purchasae author copies and send one to each of my beta readers. I will also leave one on my desk, this time of course, as I am retired, I will be the only one to see it. I can't begin to explain what an amazing feeling it is to hold in your hands, a book that you created. As for the 72 hour wait, my guess is we are waiting for internal data to be moved into an external facing database. With the amount of data that Amazon moves along that pipeline, I am not surprised it will take three days.

Meanwhile, the second in the series is with beta readers, while the third is beginning to form in my head. And I need to get back to my studies, figuring out how Amazon Ads will best work for me.

PS: I have received notification that my book passed the review, so I guess it is now in the pipeline heading to the external world.