Everyone Thinks It’s So Easy

Perhaps to a select few, authoring a good book is easy–or at least that select few make it seem effortless.

For the rest of us, it is agony. First, we anguish over getting the manuscript on paper. Then we slave over editing. Next comes marketing, which, for the first novelist, means telling everyone we know, back to the boy who pulled our braids in sixth grade, that we have a book out. Trying to appear professional,  we plan to avoid begging, but we beg anyway for someone to buy our book. Finally we sit with angst waiting on the first book sale, then the next, and next. We give ourselves ulcers.

And if the book doesn’t sell, we are crestfallen. Aunt Linda said the book should be on the best seller list. Cousin James said he would buy a copy, then didn’t. Our best friends are avoiding our calls. We line up a book signing–and no one shows up.

Somehow, this doesn’t feel  easy.