I want to keep moving forward while the book is with the editor, but just getting a handle on everything is difficult. I thought to begin the process of the book cover design but I'm not sure if that's premature. I just listened to a podcast about direct sales and I started hyperventilating, so I thought a list might be in order, just to help me make sense of the to-dos.
~ Edit (ongoing)
~ Choose a cover design company or designer
~ Purchase interior design software (vs. hire an interior designer?)
~ ISBN number purchase
~ Investigate direct sales - Shopify, plus Bookfunnel, plus print on demand options
~ Familiarize myself with Draft2Digital
~ Netgalley/ARCs
~ Marketing
You may have noticed that almost all of these things have a cost associated. I've committed to spending money on this, but I can't help but think I'll be wasting it all if I don't manage to do the last item on the list -- arguably the scariest of all. It's easy to think of the money spent as an investment, but that only holds up if I manage to sell a significant number of books, and if there's anything I'm learning from all these helpful podcasts, that is highly unlikely with a first (and maybe only) book.
The problem isn't that there is no guidance, it's that there's too much. What I have the skills, aptitude and fortitude for is hard to pull out of the sea of available info. And I know that the answer is probably at the corner of "go at your own pace" and "do what feels right," but none of that has really served me before. My pace is glacial and nothing feels right just now.
Ah, well. I will nibble at the edges of one of those things later, when this tide of anxiety recedes. No one except me cares that this is taking forever.
The truth is I'm too far down the path to turn back now. Arguably my reluctance to accept sunk costs is how I managed to have a book to write in the first place, so I'll cling for that for the time being, and maybe switch to music and housework for awhile.