The Apollo Salvatoir Series – Waiting For Reviews
I have experienced other book launches before. This is not my first rodeo, as the old saying goes. However, this launch is different. Emotionally, this launch means a lot more to me. More than I realized in fact, until after it actually began.
After all, Apollo Salvatoir is the first book I ever wrote, back when I was ten years old. That telling of the story was so bad, that I threw it away in disgust. However, I have never stopped living the story in my mind. I love the hundreds of characters and their many adventures. I visit their world pretty much every night while waiting to fall asleep.
Launching My Other Books Didn’t Affect Me The Same Way
While I put everything I had into my other books and really worked to make them as good as I could, these books didn’t have the power to affect me the same way that this one has. If those books got negative reviews, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. I could handle it! In my mind, I could brush off critics without feeling too much pain. If anything, I could view the critical feedback as helpful in my growth as a writer. Those books really did not possess the power to affect my emotional well-being. Those books were all practice. I was proud of them, and for that matter, I still am proud of them. But everything didn’t hinge on their being perfect.
Apollo Salvatoir Is Different
This is the book I spent my lifetime planning. Their world is one that feels very real to me. The characters are known to my heart and mind, just as well as many of the living people I interact with. I have one chance, and one chance only to introduce them to the rest of the world, and to do their story justice. That feels like a heavy responsibility to me! If my writing is bad, then these characters will never get to be loved. They will never get to be appreciated, by anyone other than me. It isn’t their fault that they are stuck inside my head, instead of the head of a much better writer!
It took me more than 30 years to decide to attempt to write their story again. After that, it took me months and months of hard work to get the writing to a point where I felt I could release it.
When I did, at first, I felt good. I felt proud. I thought my writing was something that told the story of Apollo and Ling fairly.
That was the first day, after publishing.
The second day, I had a near panic attack. I have never experienced anything close to that with a book launch before! I went for a walk late at night, up and down the streets of my community wondering why I had been too fast to publish. Thinking I had blown it! I had pulled the trigger too early! It wasn’t ready yet! What was I thinking!
My brain went round and round, I re-read the first chapter about three times, thinking it was terrible. I was in a true downward spiral. Then in the depts of this neuroticism, out of no where I got a message from one of my readers. Also a former student of mine, and someone I care very much about. She kindly, without being prompted to do so, informed me that she loved my book so far.
She was only still in the first few chapters but she wanted me to know she loved them! Her words were exactly what I needed to hear, in the exact moment I needed to hear them. You cannot appreciate how much it meant to have someone, whose opinion you value, reach out to you without being asked to do so, and tell you that the first few chapters of your book (which were the ones I was stressing about) were good.
I slept that night because of her comments. My wife helped me as well. But she loves me, and so she is bias.
In any event, I have found strength again, and am prepared now for honest reviews. None have come in yet. The book has spent three consecutive days on the Best Seller list for Amazon, and several hundred copies have been downloaded, but, still no reviews.
After my bout with neuroticism two days ago, and my agonizing hours of self-doubt that day, I do now feel better. Though I hope for positive reviews, I do now believe myself ready to handle negative or constructive feedback… perhaps…
Though I am hoping that the world will love Ling and Apollo as much as I do.
