So this is what happens when your book finally hits the store shelves - you sort of freak. Imagine that you've spent the better part of a decade waiting for this very moment (in our case 8 years from "dude, we should write something" to "dude, smell the book!"). Well the moment arrives (in our case on 3/31/09) and all you can do is...nothing.

You wait.

And wait.

And wait.

(however long it took you to read those last three sentences is pretty much about how long I waited).

And then you dive into the net like it's nobody's business. These are the types of questions OCD authors ask themselves:
 

1. Is anyone blogging about us? (A: no, idiot, the ink hasn't even dried on the covers).
2. Have we been reviewed yet? (A: Yes, sort of. No one's reviewed the final version of your book because, well, the ink hasn't even dried on the covers).  
3. Will they like us? (A: If you start going all Sally Fields on me I swear to God I'm gonna kick your metrosexual ass from here to Eros.)

And finally, the granddaddy of them all:

        4. ARE WE SELLING???

The really sad part about all of the above (besides its inherent patheticism) is that there's not a bloody thing you can do once the book's been released. That ship has sailed, sister. Oh, don't get me wrong, you can easily fool yourself into thinking all you need is a bacon cat to really push your book sales over the edge. Or perhaps if you add a few more cons to your schedule then maybe...just maybe...you'll have done enough.

Cue horrible moment of truth:  You can never do enough.

Hovering over blogs where others argue about the merits of your work will not sell more books.  Hourly checking your amazon.com ranking will do nothing but burn the amazon landing page image into your retinas (I think I need a screen saver for my eyes). No, friends, what  all of this will do is drive you absolutely crazy. Fortunately I'm now inured.  I've been to the edge so many times I actually bought land there and built myself a nice little veranda. Bleak can be beautiful, you just have to know how to stain it.

Here's the real irony--All the obsessiveness I used to my great advantage to get the thing published (writing and rewriting, calling and re-calling, etc, etc,)  turned on me like a rabid dog. And the only outlet for my OCD was the net's infinite drill down. Page after glorious page was felled by my handy mouse in my blind search for any mention of the book's name.  I swear to God I could practically smell The Unincorporated Man on the Net. Alas, it had to stop. The veranda began to teeter (must of been when I put the pastrami on the dog).