One Small (daily) Step For Me, One Giant Step Closer To Paradise

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The cover is nearly completed for the book. Mike, the artist has done his part and he is kindly waiting for me.  I still need to do those things like, rewrite the summary (for the 1,999,999,888th time) and write bio of myself.  

I got the rough copy of it in my email.and had the most unusual of reactions: teared up, then felt sick.  I know not what one would expect.  I am so close to finishing a goal I have set for myself since childhood.  It was a huge and scary goal, but writing my first novel has been an experience like no other.  Even if the only people that buy my book are family it was worth it.  Even if they never read it, it will still be worth it because I finished.  

I saw this in my Tumblr yesterday and it fit. 

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Letting go is not easy.  This book is a combination of everything I have encountered and lived.  Everyone that knows me, really knows me, will see every bit of my life in this book.  It's characters are combinations of friends, enemies, and strangers.  It is scary to let it go into the world.  

Even I know the statistics.  Of the millions of ebooks uploaded to amazon each day 90% are never purchased. Of the those that are 9% of those don't sell more then 100 copies in the life of the book much less a month.  It all sounds pretty dire.  My great hope is that mine will be the 1%.  I am not asking for a lot...100 books sold a week would be enough to stop my risky career as a driver's education teacher.   Sounds like I am asking to win the lottery.  

But think of it this way of the books uploaded to Amazon most are not edited, not rewritten over 100 times, don't have professional covers, don't have any type of marketing (with blogs and social networks) and those writers don't  go the extra step to researching the market.  That is what I have been told.  I hope doing all of these give me the edge.  I need an edge.  

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Not the sharp one that leads to a craggy plummet, but you know the good kind that "Outlier" kind.  Today I edit...some more.  I will still be editing even after I publish this.  I know..and fully except it.  It is never done, never perfect.  But I am closer to the edge of letting it go.  

What goal have you been working towards?  

or 

What was the best part about the last book you read?