Marketing. Book selling. NetGalley. BookSirens. Double down on Twitter. No, it’s called X now. Send out ARCs to readers. Book bloggers. Book tour bloggers. Tell people about my new novel. Tell more people. Spread the news on Facebook without totally annoying people and making them hate me. Create marketing visuals (actually beg my son to make them).

Oh, did I tell you I have a new book coming out on October 24th? That’s why all this marketing hubbub. All the publicity and worry lines, wrinkles and anxiety.

The name of my new novel is The Anchorman’s Wife and I’m already freaking out.

Ask writers for blurbs. Got ‘em. Thank the people who wrote great blurbs and penned advance book reviews. Convince myself I’m not a fraud and imposter but a real writer. Go to the post office and send out ARCs of this wonderful new book I’m sick of editing. Tell the postal office clerk that there are books inside the Manila envelope while fighting the urge to tell same clerk that they are my books. The books I wrote. That I’m a not-so-famous author. Then I jokingly tell the clerk that I’m a novelist and I’m sending out books, hoping he’ll be impressed, but he grimaces and asks me for $19.80. Oh, and if I want stamps.

Return home. Schedule podcast appearances. Call bookstores to make sure they carry my book. Read existing reviews of my novel and realize there are some errors and inconsistencies that made it through to the ARC. Damn. Make notes to fix dumb errors before they appear in the final version. Keep track of email addresses to put into my mailing list—which I have yet to set up.

Sit down. Take a deep breath. Try to ignore the intense pain in my chest. Tell myself not to have an anxiety attack over the first world problem of being an author. Try not to worry about the bad reviews that will come with publishing this novel (there are always bad reviews) and bad sales (there are always bad sales). Call my therapist and set up another session. Take anti anxiety meds. Knock back shots of Pepto Bismo. Grab a box of tissues in the event I feel a tear coming on.

Shit! I forgot about the blog post I have to write by mid morning. For the Maine Crime Writers blog! That damn Kate Flora never stops reminding me of my blog responsibilities, although I loved her last novel. Stop thinking about marketing my book and think about what I’m going to write about in blog. Sip coffee and consider various topics, but dismiss each and every one. Procrastinate. Go into the kitchen and stare into the near empty fridge for the nth time. Grab a celery stalk and head back to the desk to write my blog. Hopefully, whoever reads this won’t think I’m a complete moron.

Check the reviews on NetGalley and realize that my best review has been taken down by the reviewer who wrote it. Curse! Jump up and down. Punch the wall. Tear out the three remaining hairs on my head. Spend the next three hours trying to track down this reviewer and demand to know why she has taken down such a such a superfluous review. Did I offend her? Did she go back and realize that she hated my book? Just my luck. Grab a tissue and have a good cry.

Feeling better now. Until I glance at the preorders on Amazon. Have another quick crying spell. See that it’s near bedtime and hit the hay. Have nightmares about publishing this new novel. Wake up several times in a cold sweat.

Wake up in the morning. Get my coffee.

It’s a new day in Publishkistan.

Do the above all over again. Except write blog.

Until the day of reckoning on October 24th when The Anchorman’s Wife finally publishes.