All the world's a stage

It's pretty amazing to me that whenever I check the sales on my ebooks, they keep going up.  I've long since passed the time when it's only family and friends who are buying them --- and I'm doing virtually nothing to promote them. So how does this happen?

Magic of the interwebs, I guess ---- thank you Amazon.com!

This summer I spent quite a bit of time and energy getting the books out in both paperback and ebook formats, with lots of proofing, tweaking, and revising.  During that time, my focus shifted away from creation and onto the nuts and bolts of publication.  Taking the self-publishing route, as I have, I get to control the timeline, but the entire responsibility for quality and distribution fall on me.  Drives my little perfectionistic self NUTS!

I have often said, over the years, that I like the creativity of writing, but not the selling.  That still holds true, though I do actually like learning the new skills it took to put it out there.  I also have always known that I would write, whether anybody ever read it or not.  Call it Emily Dickinson Syndrome.  It's not like drinking bourbon or eating cookies --- not that kind of compulsion ---- but it seems that writing satisfies some deep need for expression in me.  So I've always done it, even though much of it has never seen the light of day.

Do I like that my books are selling?  Of course!  It's quite a thrill.  What I'm afraid of is that I will get caught up in "logistics", as I call it, and neglect the creative impulse.  I'm also wary of the ego aspect of it.  I grew up in a performance oriented family --- not only was academic performance a priority, actual public performances were a matter of course.  My father was a musician.  My sister and I sang in one of those ever-popular sister acts on stage and tv.  We all took dance, we all had piano and various other instrumental lessons.  And every chance we got, we were in theater.  From the time we were young, our parents were continuously involved in community theater, and if we kids weren't actually in the production, we were often at rehearsals or working backstage.  While most of us dropped off by the time we were raising kids and making a living, my youngest sister is still active in two theater groups and always at one rehearsal or another. And I guess you have to count the 15+ years that I was straddling the 19th and 20th centuries in museums, schools, festivals and even private parties, as a living history interpreter, educator and storyteller.

And what does this have to do with selling books?  I do love a spotlight!  It's easy to get hooked on the ego of it all.  But writing is a solitary pursuit.  As much fun as I have when I'm writing, for a social butterfly like me, it can get a little lonely.

What I strive for is balance.  I need them both, the public and the private, the creative and the commercial.  And isn't that what I keep looking for in all of my life?  Somehow, even with my full-tilt, obsessive-compulsive, high/low self, who will keep doing something that feels good until it doesn't, I want to find a middle road.  I sometimes feel like my life IS a stage (wait, did somebody already use that?) and I keep weaving my way around and through the set pieces trying to find my way.  Gargoyles, heroines, towers, dragons, and drawing rooms ---- I need it all, in order to feed the me of me.  Not a bad gig, all in all.

Wanna buy a book?