Well, not full-fledged, run-and-hide-in-a-bottle-of-booze panic. It's too early for that. Just enough panic to make me forget important things I need to deal with, lose sleep, and wake up in a sweat. All because City Limits is supposed to be released on June 23 and I'm still looking for a Seattle-area venue for the release party.
I ate outside last night and left my dishes next to the grill, not even remembering that I'd eaten. I left the windows open on the trailer last night and the space heater on. Woke up at midnight wrapped in my blankets and sweating like a pig. Shut off the heater and tossed off the blankets. Took two hours to cool down enough to get back to a half-sleep. Woke up at dawn (5:00 a.m.) freezing. Grabbed a blanket and buried my head under a pillow for two more hours. No, I didn't get up and close the windows.
And I'm accomplishing things that have nothing at all to do with the release. I've managed well-over 5,000 words in chapter one of Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits. The 2nd edition printer's proof of For Money or Mayhem arrived yesterday and I've made corrections throughout the book. It will be uploaded to Amazon and Nook by June 1. That's also the date that advance orders for City Limits will begin so you can have your official released copy downloaded automatically on the day of release.
For Money or Mayhem will begin serialization here on SOL on July 13. That means that I've converted every chapter to html for posting, which was a great help to my error-collection-and-correction efforts. I will go to the every three days posting schedule instead of once a week as I did with City Limits.
I have been somewhat concerned about releasing my backlist (and new release) as serials on SOL. Amazon reserves the right to offer the lowest price on the Internet for eBooks. So, if they discover a book offered for free, they can automatically reduce the price of my book to $0.00. I personally consider the serialized version to be a different edition than the eBook. In an effort to assuage the Bezos-gods, all the books I release here on SOL (or any other site where I serialize them) will have a different ISBN than the eBook. That and the clear statement that this is the Serialized Edition. I frankly don't think they are very aggressive about checking this stuff, but I'm doing what I can. Authors make less than half of what Amazon makes off their books when it comes down to tracking everything, even if the eBook royalty says 70% (minus $.50 as a download fee), the paperback earns me $1.23 out of $15 when distributed to the extended network.
So, in keeping with this, I've added a copyright and ISBN statement to the first chapter of City Limits. If you note that the chapter has been updated today, that's all it is.
Today, I need to go to Coeur d'Alene to refill prescriptions, talk to a bookstore, and tank up for my weekend trip to Seattle to see my daughter and make arrangements for the release. Guess I'd better go shower.
And put on pants.