Ten days until my first book releases. I should probably be more excited, but instead I just feel focused. Focused on trying to do the last-minute things necessary to try to get the word out, and as much distribution as possible. I don’t expect my first book to sell well, if only because many of the people who’d like it will not hear about it.

I’m trying to get my book, easily ordered online form all sorts of places, into actual brick-and-mortar stores — which is very hard to do, it turns out. Most of the indie authors I know don’t even bother to try, and maybe they’re right. Maybe this is a lesson I’m learning right now. But I have to try. To me, the only form of failure that’s never acceptable is failure from lack of effort. If everything’s stacked against me, there’s nothing I can do about that, but if I give up — that’s on me.

There’s a part of me that can’t wait to just get back to writing. I was reviewing my outline for Drawing Dead yesterday (that’s Book 3), and made some changes that will improve it. I haven’t written in so long, I need to review the outline to refresh myself, so I might as well polish it some more in the process.

No plans for a “release party” or anything. Like most books or music, Blood Game will drop on a Tuesday, and that’s one of our family pub trivia nights. We’ll probably be out at the usual place, battling the usual teams. Works for me.