Launch Day, Softly

I always thought it would be different.
In my dreams, "launch day" always meant PARTY TIME, and not more work.
But that's the way it is: it's more work, especially if Amazon takes everyone by surprise again and launches early, and consequently makes a mess of all the carefully laid plans for the real launch day.
Now I could be cool about it and say, "Happens to me all the time!" and it would be the truth.

Happens to me all the time. Both times.
My readers are happy! They get their pre-ordered books earlier than they thought, and I'm glad for them.
For me, though, it's like... you know when you have a shiny, new balloon, a really well-filled balloon, and someone gives you a needle and says, "You can pop this balloon, and there will be a loud and fantastic BANG and all that confetti and glitter hidden inside will POP out and YAY it will be party time! But you have to wait until Monday, or everything will be spoiled!" – that.
And so you sit and wait and stare at the balloon and make all kinds of plans about how everything will be glittery with the stuff inside it, and you'll go out and buy champagne and cake to celebrate the pop – and then you find out that the balloon has a leak! There won't be any pop and sparkle after all, just a gentle leaking, and on Monday, there'll be nothing but a flaccid rubber skin and sadly drifting confetti.

So this is how it went yesterday.
People were telling me their pre-ordered copies of "Under The Same Sun" had shipped, and yay, they would be spending the weekend reading my new book! I went over to the Amazon page, and no kidding, it was in stock.
Which means it had launched. Yay.
I told my husband. He was watching football, Germany vs. Ireland, and the Germans had just been cheated out of a penalty, which did not amuse my husband.
"Great," he said, and I don't know if he meant me or the referee.
My kid, engrossed in Minecraft or something of the sort, grunted an "Aha" at me.
So much for launching a second book!
I went over to Twitter, and tweeted it. Two or three people reacted. Everyone else was watching football or having dinner. Twitter was fast asleep.

So here I was, with my second book released, and all alone with that fact. Even my publisher was out shopping or something.

See, the secret here is the word "second". It's another book. In my opinion, it's the most important book in a writing career. Getting lucky with the first one, getting it published, isn't that hard. But then, after that, you have to follow up. You have to prove to yourself, your publisher and the world that you can do more than spit out one book, and that's where the tough part begins.
I was so much more afraid when I submitted this second book. When I sent it in, I kept asking myself, "Will they like it as much as the first? What if they don't like it? What will happen if they reject it, will I ever have the guts to write another one?"
Well, as you can see, they did like it, even said it was better than the first, and congratulations, you are growing as a writer, you're doing great.

You see me a little dazed today. It's Saturday, and I'm working on the posts for the blog hop that begins on Monday.
I'm an author with two published books.