Author on the Couch: My thoughts on the box set experience

We did it!

I – and 24 other authors – earned the title of U.S.A. Today Bestselling Author last Wednesday, September 25th for Rogue Skies, a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories. My new steampunk novella, The Art of Piracy, is included in the set, and I’m very proud of it. I’m also very excited that it’s in the hands of 6000+ readers.

Getting the news that we’d made the list – at the very respectable position of 104, which is high for a box set – prompted an incredible sense of relief. Six months of very hard work had paid off. I wouldn’t have to have awkward conversations with people I had asked for help. And I won’t have to do this ever again.

Why did I decide to go for the USA Today Bestselling Author title? I talked about that in my blog post from September 15. I definitely hope to get some of those benefits, but what I didn’t realize was how much I would learn. Here are some of my lessons…

Fear of failure affects me more than I realized…

Why did I go for this box set as opposed to other opportunities? I’d been in a previous box set called A Wicked Halloween. There were fourteen of us for thirteen stories, and, well, it flopped. Badly.

When I saw the call for Rogue Skies, I jumped on it for a few reasons. First, along with the call came the comment, “science fiction and fantasy box sets typically do well.” Second, a friend of mine had been in last year’s sci-fi/fantasy box set, and they’d gotten their letters. Third, there would be more of us – 25 for 24 stories.

For those who aren’t familiar with the process, the goal is to get a certain large number of sales across platforms in order to hit the USA Today bestseller list. For independent authors who don’t have the established reach or publicity departments of large publishers, either we have to build a large audience on our own or pool resources to duplicate what the publicity branch of a publisher does. We did the latter.

So, there was already a greater chance of success than the previous box set. But it still affected me.

During the first three or four months of marketing Rogue Skies, I had an interesting approach/avoid thing going on. It was very difficult for me to do what I needed to do. I did it because I’d committed to it, but I felt this sense of resistance. For example, when I’d sit down to post in Facebook groups, my stomach would twist, and I’d feel this dual sense of dread and hopelessness.

I can now see that I didn’t want to commit fully to the process because what if I failed again?

Then, as release day approached and we got into release week, my perspective flipped. I got too focused. Okay, I got obsessed. I didn’t sleep well the night before the set released on September 17, and I exhausted myself during that week, trying to get as many sales as possible before midnight on September 22, which is the cutoff for sales to count toward the list. I even spent the first evening and day of a much-needed beach vacation mostly attached to my laptop.

This brings me to my second realization…

I had lost faith in others and myself.

Sorry for the vagueness here, but I don’t want to be accused of slandering anyone. The wider context – along with the box set stuff, I’ve had to deal with the fallout of a series of bad business decisions based on my misjudgment of someone. Because as a mental health professional, I should be able to see exactly what people are like, right? How’s that for a dual failure? That along with the flop of the previous box set, which happened because others weren’t pulling their weight, made me reluctant to trust others and my perceptions of them.

Then something almost magical happened. We got two awesome set leaders, Courtney and Mirren, who had the positive leadership style I respond best to. I could see that the other authors, at least most of them, were using their resources and pulling their weight. In an interview by the Whiskey with My Book blog, I compared the experience to playing in a musical ensemble, which is something I love. Everyone has their own talents, and wonderful things happen when we pool them together. It made for a good and healing experience, and even if we hadn’t made the list, I would have been grateful. Several of the others said the same.

I was also lucky to be on the advertising team, and we continued our group chat after release and have continued to be in touch. I’ve also been overwhelmed in a good way by the support I’ve gotten from family and friends.

Although I’m grateful for the achievement of making the list, this newfound and re-recognized connection with others is the bigger gift.

I’m too old for this kind of stress.

The most stressful part of the box set process wasn’t release week. It was the two and a half days of waiting for the list to come out after there was nothing else we could do to help that happen. Luckily I was at the beach and could distract with fun stuff. I drank fruity rum drinks and wine. Hubby and I got massages. I walked on the beach and ate good food.

But in spite of all the lovely distractions, the uncertainty was there, thrumming in the background. What if, what if, what if… I was able to catch myself before I went too far down the “What else could I have done?” rabbit hole, but it was still there, waiting to trip me up.

And when my husband showed me his phone, and I saw that Rogue Skies had made it, I almost burst into tears.

Now, a week and a half later, I see that my body was reacting with a fight or flight response, like I was in a race to the death. Which was unnecessary, but I do have a history of anxiety, so it’s not surprising.

No one was going to die if we didn’t make the list. In fact, as I tell my patients, we don’t typically have tigers chasing us, but our minds create them.

As unpleasant as that reaction was, it forced me to take a step back and reassess. Where have I been engaging in unnecessary stress? How have I been making things more difficult for myself? As an overachiever, this is, alas, far too easy for me to do.

It’s time to focus on what’s truly important.

Thankfully I have a business coach who can give me a more objective perspective, and I discussed this realization with her this past Wednesday. She said that I’m mature and insightful, and this is a realization that people typically come to when they’re closer to their fifties. My inner overachiever likes to be called mature and insightful. My nascent new perspective is facepalming, but I recognize that everything is a process.

So, I’m going to be making some changes, both at the day job and in my writing schedule, and I’ll share some of them as we go along. I’ll also be on social media much less since that feeds into my anxiety and wastes time I’d rather spend doing value-related things.

I’m so grateful for these lessons, and although this was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I’m so very glad I did it. I can now call myself a USA Today bestselling author, and I received other gifts as well.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

-C