Uncontrollable Factors In Publishing

I am sure all of you are like me. We wish things would run perfectly all of the time. We want things to happen when they are supposed to. We don't want those flat tires, or finding no milk in the fridge right before dinner. But the reality is that we do live in the real world. Things happen. Life happens.

I was thinking about this over the weekend. As many of you know, my daughter rides competitive hunter jumping. Yes, I allow my daughter to take an off-the track race horse over big jumps. In any case, we had a show this weekend. She has been gearing up for this show for the last two weeks. She has been jumping her head off at the stables we board at. Things were all in alignment. But...

When we got to the show, things just didn't work out. We had, what seems to be, an equipment issue. The saddle was rubbing the horse wrong, and, needless to say, he was simply not going to jump.

I bring all of this up because there will be uncontrollable factors in publishing that will have effects on your writing career and certainly sales. One of my authors saw a 50% decrease in sales of her first book simply because Borders decided to shut down the week of her release. There was nothing she could have done to control that.

You might even plan on going to a conference, but, those unforeseen factors may come into plat that prevents you from taking that trip.

Life happens.

But this does not mean you stop. You find a way to overcome those obstacles. You find a way to move on in the best way possible. Will it be easy? No. Will you be frustrated? Yes. Will you want to quit? Quite possibly. But you can overcome it.