FEAR AND DOUBT: A WRITER’S WORST ENEMY

Hi. Jeff here.
I am excited to have a guest blogger here today, the first of many with a little something to say to writers and a little something to say to readers. So without further adieu, I'd like to introduce George Pappas, the author of Monogamy Sucks, to discuss how he overcame his fears of publishing.

George Pappas

Overcoming fears and doubts is one of the toughest challenges a writer faces.

If you don’t believe in your own work, why should anyone else?

Easier said than done.

My own fears and doubts kept my novel Monogamy Sucks, which was recently published as an e-book by Lazy Day Publishing, in my computer for more than 12 years. I kept never showed my work to anyone -- not even my closest friends or family.

I personally was afraid that no one would grasp my novel’s vision or understand what I was trying to do -- explore the limits of monogamy through the eyes of a liberated male who goes on a taboo bending journey.

It wasn’t just that I was dealing with controversial subjects, but that I was also challenging the status quo of monogamy and writing my novel from an edgy male perspective.

Questions haunted me.

Would I turn off potential female readers? Would readers be put off my novel’s explicit material? Would they enjoy and be amused by my main character Jake Dalmas’ dark and sarcastic sense of humor which is the core of my book?

Yet as I am discovering these days, female readers have taken more to my book than male readers have. However, I didn’t know if that would be the case at the time.

I worried if there was a market for my controversial novel.  My first novel Letters From Cyberspace, which I self-published, was ignored, and it was a book written from the female point of view. I also had a frustrating experience in trying to find an agent and publisher for my first book and doubted if it would be any easier with this novel.

Additionally, I was reluctant to relinquish control over the content of my novel. So all of this fear conspired to keep my novel under wraps for years as I worked on draft after draft waiting to bring it out myself.

Earlier this year, I finally decided after much consideration to bring out my novel one chapter at a time on a dedicated blog -- www.monogamysucks.wordpress.com.

I had seen a photo feature on the Huffington Post about how many bestsellers started out as blogs. I figured what did I have to lose? Still, in the weeks and days shortly before and after my novel’s May 2010 blog launch, I dreaded what people might think.

All of my worst fears proved unfounded. 

I didn’t find a group of haters waiting to attack me and my novel, but instead found supporters and potential readers. What ultimately surprised me was the overwhelming positive response I received to my blog novel. Readers praised my novel’s humor. They mentioned how they could relate to Jake’s foibles and experiences and wanted to read the entire book. Two months into my blog novel experiment, Lazy Day Publishing, a new digital publisher, offered to publish my novel. It was more than I ever could have imagined.

What did I learn from all this that I can suggest to my fellow writers? 

Bring some sunshine into your private writing world. Embrace the Internet. Start a blog and begin blogging about your writing experiences, and even more importantly, reveal some of your writing online. Build up your own readership and supporters. Go on Twitter and Facebook and meet fellow writers and potential publishing contacts and readers.

Writers no longer need to languish in isolation and obscurity wondering if anyone will ever care about their writing projects. A new writing destiny can now be at your fingertips. You can truly make it your own. The DIY revolution that made Punk Rock and independent filmmaking so thrilling has taken over the publishing industry.

Join it.

George Pappas  

Twitter: @gpwriter @jakedalmas 

Blog: http:\\www.monogamysucks.wordpress.com 

Publisher: http:\\www.lazydaypub.com 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monogamy-Sucks-An-Erotic-Fiction-Novel/171812426178729?v=wall