I got a good chuckle when I checked this month’s topic.  “What fears do I have regarding publication?”  Why did I chuckle?  Because my first publication is just going live.  Had you heard?  Blackbirds First Flight, a dark fantasy anthology, is on sale a little early from it’s planned October 1st publication date, so you can pick up a copy now (Go ahead. I’ll wait.)

Thank you. My fears regarding publication, since I’ve decided to go the self-publishing route, run along the lines of making a mistake and doing something that brings me to the attention of some regulatory body I didn’t know about or one that I did know about but was unaware of the proper procedures to follow.  Maybe this is the thing that keeps people with otherwise good ideas from going into business for themselves?  I can see that.

The other publishing fear is one so far from being likely to happen, it stays on the periphery of my mind.  What might that be? That I would somehow manage to become some type of authorial rockstar sensation to the extend that I couldn’t venture into public without being mobbed by fans. Or that they would camp outside my house.

Have you stopped laughing yet?  Yeah. Pretty unlikely, that one, and it doesn’t seem fair to anyone who might be a fan of my work, because I do not mean to demean anyone’s appreciation.  The massive introvert that is me thinks that might be the worst thing that could happen.  Actually, the true fans aren’t the problem.  The inability to tell them from the psychopaths in the world is of greater concern.

Then, of course, there is this: Someone claiming your work is really their work when it isn’t but having a to find a way to prove it when the accuser apparently only has to say, “That’s mine.”

Of a more generic nature is the concern a very stupid typo will make it through the beta reader and editing process only to be caught by readers.  If there’s only one of those, that’s not so bad, but what if there are a bunch? How embarrassing! Want to avoid that one.

Got any publishing nightmares to share?  I know we want to hear all about it.