By JccKeith
On the eve of publishing my very first ever book I find myself in a very familiar situation. The feelings of doubt, the feelings of wanting to give up because I’m just not good enough to pull this off, the feelings that I won’t succeed, my work won’t be good enough – they all linger in my mind and hold tightly to my heart. Like a strangling grip around me, they act in a coordinated effort to prevent me from actually publishing the book.
It is frustrating because this is my mind working against the desires of my mind. I am sabotaging myself. All of the hard part is done. All of the story has been typed and edited. I have printed it out in its entirety just to hold it in my hands to make sure I can do a final edit and see it in front of me on paper rather than a computer screen. For all intents and purposes my book is finished and ready to be published, the front matter is done, the cover is done, the back is done. I am waiting on my final once over to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Yet here I sit, with quiet time reserved just so I can work on this book to get it ready to submit. Here I sit and I am not working on this all famous once over I need to do. I am instead contemplating every thing that could possibly go wrong. I am thinking about negative reviews. I am thinking about no sales. I am thinking about no one even noticing my book ever. I am thinking about how I will feel if no on buys it or downloads it when it’s free. Can my mind and my heart handle such terrible reviews? Am I thick skinned and rational enough to weather the tough times?
What this post comes down to is that I am mentally psyching myself up to do this. I am confronting all possible problems now to make sure I will be mentally and emotionally prepared to put my book out into the great wide world.
As I stated above, these are all familiar feelings. I remember having every one of them the last year of college. As graduation time approached and finals loomed, I felt these same feelings. Was I good enough? Would people think I was good enough? It was all a very surreal experience and so is this one it seems.
So what about everyone else out there? How did you feel just before publishing your book? Were you a bundle of nerves? Were you calm and cool?
Jcckeith 
I think the waiting for publishing is far harder than the writing of it. Hang in there, you will be fine! Well done on getting this far.
I would agree with that, the publishing part is harder than the writing
I think the nerves are far harder than the reality. I can’t give you definitives because I don’t yet have a book out there, but I do know that fear of the unknown is always harder than the knowing. Get your book out and enjoy what comes with it. 🙂
Working on getting it out there!
I definitely felt every single one of those emotions and to some extent still do. I relaxed a bit when I had my first independent review and I hope that these continue to come in and be positive and I guess with each one of those, your confidence and self belief grows. Good luck. 🙂
Thanks!