December 2, 2013

It was a day I won't forget

The curiosity of what happened after the stroke of midnight on December 2, woke me before the sun rose. In those early morning hours, my book, You Had It All Along, was being released into the world. My publisher promised that it would be a best-seller. I didn’t trust her. It was a short accounting of how to build more confidence with exercises that I had used with my coaching clients. How could she be so sure that it would be a best-seller?

After wiping the sleep from my eyes, I picked up my phone and saw an email from Viki. Congratulations! You have made the #1 International Best Sellers List! Welcome to the Best-seller Family!

How could that be? How many copies could I have sold in such a short amount of time? Thousands to be considered a best-seller, right? How could it be less than that? Of course I was excited about thousands of people purchasing the book, but the truly exciting part for me, is that meant thousands would be reading it. That was where my heart was - getting these ideas into the hands of as many women who might be struggling with confidence as possible.

Giddy with joy, I woke up everyone in the house to share my good news. I was not met with the same enthusiasm as I was giving and that wasn’t surprising honestly. Disappointing, sure, but no one else could really understand how much it meant to me to have other people have access to my coaching in the form of a book. That dampened my spirit for a moment, but I didn’t let it undermine the accomplishment of the day.

When I pressed Viki for numbers, she said that we would have a meeting where they would turn over my Amazon account and show me the backend stats at the end of the week. The only thing that she hinted about in the email was that she was pleasantly shocked at the amount of people that purchased the book on Cyber Monday. We had gone back and forth about when to release the book. I was set on Cyber Monday because people would be online already and would be more apt to buy it. She insisted that no one launched a book on a Monday successfully. In the end, I released her from responsibility if it flopped because it was on a Monday, and I truly felt like it was the right move. Turns out I was right.

It was a magical week waiting for my highly anticipated meeting with Viki. I walked around everywhere with the statement in my head on repeat, “You are a #1 International Best-selling Author.” Bringing an instant smile with each iteration, I looked at everyone differently, wondering if they were one of the ones who purchased my book. Honestly, I wanted to tell everyone I knew, and exercised an immense amount of restraint by not blurting out the accomplishment I had achieved.

Every moment of that week became ridiculous as soon as we opened the backend of my account to see the statistics. Of course, I am expecting that thousands of people purchased the book. Imagine my surprise when on the night of launch, I saw that three people purchased the book. I think two in the UK and one in Canada. Wait. What? How can that be? How does three books make an #1 International best-seller. I saw the screen shots that Viki had sent over, but it wasn’t adding up in my brain.

I finally asked how this could happen, she explained that all it takes for someone to claim that status is for more people to buy than anyone else buys in a certain moment and to capture it with a screen shot. They had a group of people located around the world that they have purchase and review books in the middle of the night when far fewer people are buying online. So, I could absolutely get that title with only three books sold.

My cheeks burned red with embarrassment and anger. Feeling like the biggest fraud for internally bragging all week long because of three books sold? Are you kidding me? It didn’t matter that there were about 1000 sales over the whole week. I felt like such a fool. The humiliation was humbling to say the least and changed my brain chemistry for sure.

The longer it went on, the more of a fraud I felt. I took down all of the accolades from any social media and my website. Sharing the book became an exercise in overcoming shame for believing that thousands of people could want the book. It took everything in me to promote and share it. There were moments when it felt right but it took a long time before I wanted anyone to see it or even know that I wrote it. If I am being completely honest, my cheeks still twinge pink twelve years later as I am typing this story.

The saddest part of all of it is that I love the material in it. I think it is helpful in so many ways. Would I write it differently now? Of course I would. I’m wiser and a much better writer. Twelve years can help grow deep knowledge and relatability with an audience. I often wonder if I should put out a new edition; one that reflects the person I am today. The jury is still out on that, and I will keep you posted.

Even though it continues to be a shameful experience for me, I am so grateful I encountered it. It led to me opening my own small label hoping to prevent other indie authors from having a negative experience like I did. Even though the label is closed to new books, and I transitioned into a membership for indie authors, sharing what I have learned, I will forever be grateful for the path that started with a simple phone call asking if someone would be interested in publishing a book for Christmas. It was September 17, 2013, when I made that call and I hadn’t written a word yet. I wanted to launch on December 2, 2013, and we made it happen. Books written in sixty days are rarely impactful, but I needed to learn that the hard way. That is really the only thing that qualified me as a publisher. I learned the mistakes firsthand so the people who trusted me didn’t have to.

As I sit and marvel at the past twelve years, my gratitude is stronger than my embarrassment. I have learned so much and have had the opportunity to meet so many beautiful people as a result of that little book. Cheers to having the courage to try and the perseverance to learn and grow!