Lacking ambition....

Escaping into my own head and writing fiction is sometimes so much more enticing than facing the real world and writing about what is happening in (my) life. My first novel is finished and polished and I am now frozen in fear at moving forward and potentially being rejected by any and every major publishing house in America. Or just ignored. That might possibly be worse. So I have done nothing to progress on this journey of actually having people pay for my work. I think the book is great but every time I sit down to research the best way to get it out there, I read articles with comment after comment of negativity by other writers. I know there is no sure-fire way of getting my work published but I don't want my attempts at researching my options (what I least want to do as a writer) to drag me down. At the end of most of these comments, people say "whatever you do, just keep writing!" Well, I can write all I want in the privacy of my own home but it's a waste if there is no exposure.

There are new aspects to self-publishing including but not limited to websites called Pubslush and Inkubate. At first glance, these seemed like more viable options than self-publishing via Amazon or Lulu. On closer inspection, however, I fear these could be scams and that really worries me as a novice author. One site will not publish my book until 2,000 people commit (give credit card info!) to wanting to read it based on a ten-page excerpt. In the next paragraph this same site says that most authors don't even sell 1,000 books! So how am I supposed to get excited and expect 2,000 people to be interested in my book based on 10 pages? It's contradictory at best.

So again, I'm leaning towards sending my manuscript out to actual physical publishing houses and hoping for the best. That feels daunting as well seeing as publishers still want manuscripts on paper (poor trees!) and my book is no novella.

I just want to write! I don't want to market myself, I want to market my book. I don't know why this has to be about me. The books I read and love are loved because of their characters, the story, how it makes me feel. I usually don't know much about the author at all and I'm sure he or she doesn't mind as long as that book is selling.

If I have to talk about myself to get a book I wrote from my own imagination published, I think I will continue to be frozen in time with a great novel accumulating cobwebs and my dreams left by the wayside.