When I announced I was going wide, I did it twice and actually got close to doing it. I got my Renegades series recovered especially for it, with the intent of making it a bit of a thing. I had a few things set up, but I still had a lot to do to make it happen and September was the month I was going to get them done, including putting the books up for preorder, with the hope that it would gain some momentum. I had a lot of things I planned to do to optimise that momentum and while I didn't expect it to make more than a little splash, if that, I hoped it would be a successful launch.
Then my father passed away.
The last few weeks I've tried to balance dealing with that, and dealing with family, and planning my release and taking care of my mental health in the wake of it all and I've managed exactly three of those things. Guess which thing hasn't had a look in? If you guessed my mental health, you'd be right.
I have a history of depression. I'm not there, but grief is a sure fire way to depression, the passing of my mother in 1999 taught me that.
Since I took control of my career by going to university in 2016, I've only had a couple of brushes with depression, anxiety is the bitch that refuses to leave but I know how to handle that, mostly through meditation and relaxation. But depression, when it gets its claws into me, can stay for a long time and that is utterly demotivating. Everything stops when I have depression, it's like being emotionally and mentally paralysed. I don’t want to revisit that.
So I have to reprioritise.
On the 6th, we're cremating my father. The intent is to take his ashes home to Ireland when we're in a better position to do that and have them interred with his mother and father, where he belongs. It's not ideal. I would have preferred to return him now and have him laid to rest properly, but we're simply not in a position to do that. So we'll return him at a later date and inter him with a proper catholic ceremony. He'll be home and he'll be happy.
But that still leaves the grieving and my other obligations some of which have fallen by the wayside.
So I'm going to delay going wide for the foreseeable future. I'm sorry to anyone who was waiting for that, and prefer not to buy from Amazon. I completely understand, but going wide is time consuming. It comes with learning a whole host of other methods for promotion and advertising and I just don't have the mental space to learn them right now and I doubt my head would retain any of it.
On the 2nd, I re-entered all of my books into Kindle Unlimited where they'll stay until I'm in a better place, mentally, to tackle going wide.
Thank you to everyone who contacted me in the wake of my last blog post. I really appreciate your condolences, well wishes and the stories that were shared with me. It all helped, so much.
Lucy