
Someone asked me a simple question. How many books have you published? Well, that question turned out to be far more complicated than I could have ever imagined it'd be.
Because while at the time of the question I had 12 books published, over the seven years I'd been publishing I'd published more than 28. So what had happened?
My crazy. That's what.
In the past I probably told myself I was "streamlining my brand" or some other such nonsense because when looking a the books I still had published they were all over the place, so that wasn't really what I was doing. No, what I was doing was unpublishing anything anyone didn't like.
Three star review? Gone.
Not enough people bought it? Must be bad. Gotta go.
Even my bestselling book, which I love, somehow found its way into the abyss after one especially scathing review.
When KU went from paying by books to paying by pages I assumed that short stories were bad business and unpublished all my shorts.
And the strangest part is I've run my business under the demand of my writerly insecurities completely subconsciously. It wasn't until someone asked me a simple question did I even notice what I'd done.
Well, they are all back now. Some I know I was being too hard on, some probably really do suck. But they are all part of my journey, warts and all. And since I have absolutely no ability to guess at what market response will be to my books, perhaps I should stop pretending like I know what people want and instead just do my best to tell the best stories I can and let the universe decide.