Confusing title? I’m sorry…blogging just happens when it happens so when my muse hits, I have to run with it. I’m writing this blog post on Friday but it’s for Monday. Confusing I know…
Most people have a sense of relief when Friday rolls round. The weekend is just around the corner and people are usually excited about having a few days off work. TGIF is an acronym we can all understand and relate to. I like Fridays too but mine haven’t started out with a TGIF moment ever since my book was released.
I didn’t even realize how different my Friday’s have been until I decided to blog about it. My Friday’s start out with me opening my eyes and wondering how many books I sold over the last week, what didn’t get done over the course of the week or how I am going to get any writing done with my family home and wanting my participation in their lives. Yep, Fridays stress me out, or freak me out.
That could be a whole new blog series…Freak-out Fridays brought to you by Hilary Wynne.
Book sales and my Freak-out Friday email
I think I’ve mentioned that Amazon has this handy little author’s tool that tells me how I’m ranked (book sales). I’ve stopped obsessively looking at my ranking, but I do still take a few peeks every day. Fridays are different though because actual sales figures come out on Fridays and Bookscan reports tell me how many print copies I sold the previous week and where I sold them. Sometimes the numbers are good and sometimes they could be better, but I just have to know.
A few of my friends know the info comes out on Friday’s and I got a text this morning at 7:11 asking for the info. Ironically, I was just looking it up when I got the text (it was a decent sales week). It’s a long convoluted story that I won’t bore you with, but I have yet to see ANY ebook numbers. I have no clue how many ebooks I’ve sold. I should find out at the end of this month, but every Friday when I look at the print book numbers it makes me more annoyed that I don’t know the other numbers. Not knowing makes me think about what I need to do to sell more books, which in turn makes me get on my computer and write the Freak-out Friday email.
If you’d ask my marketing team about my Friday routine, I’m sure they’d agree it’s not my calmest day. I usually can’t help myself from sending them an early morning email (early for me at least because they are in London) asking what’s going on, why something didn’t happen like it was supposed to, if they’ve heard from so and so, what the next steps are…
They’ve been recipients of my Friday freak-out emails more than once and they handle it well. I usually get an email back answering my questions and reminding me about all the things that did happen. It helps me focus on the positive, which in turn helps me move past the anxious state I’ve worked myself into.
It’s like spinning plates
It may sound crazy, maybe it is crazy, but I have so many balls in the air with trying to promote a book and write a book, that I can’t keep it all straight. Lucky for me, I don’t have to do it on my own, but because I’m a little Type A (yes, I know it), I always need to know what’s going on. Thanks Alex for keeping me calm.
Making time to be a mom, wife and author
Friday’s are also stressful because of these self-imposed deadlines I have. I don’t ever get as much writing done as I want because I have to, you know, be a mom and a wife, not just an author. My kids like to spend time with me, they like me to watch their games (always have at least two a weekend), my husband likes to go out at least one of the nights, and although they’re really patient with the writing thing, they do sometimes have to remind me it’s okay to take a break.
I love spending time with my family and we do a lot of fun things together so I’m really not complaining about it, but it does get hard to pull myself away from the story from time to time. Right now, I’m so close to being done with Book 2 that I want to chain myself to the desk to finish. It won’t happen because I have a busy schedule, but as I think about all that I want to get done with by Sunday, I start to freak-out a little.
You’ll be reading this on Monday, so I’ll probably have to tell you how my weekend went on Wednesday. Confused again? Me too, but at least right now, I’m not freaking out!
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