There are a great many advantages to self-publishing, as long as you're willing to put in a ton of work and are able to develop a vast amount of patience.  However, once you obtain even the slightest morsel of success, you end up developing a certain mindset that can quite literally cause mind-numbing obsession.  And this mindset is...

(drumroll)

Doubt.

The sales of our books have skyrocketed (comparatively) of late.  For the last week or so, we've been selling right around 40 a day.  But on this particular Saturday, things have ground to a halt.  Our sales rankings are climbing higher and higher, and along with that goes my level of panic.  I have a great fear that one day everyone will look at my work and say, "Oh, that's right, he's no good," and everything I thought I've built will crumble.  It's a dangerous thought process to have.  I've been checking the KDP feed obsessively and pulling my hair out trying to figure out HOW OH HOW I will get everything on track.  My stress levels are through the roof.

The thing is, deep down I understand that this is nothing but a hiccup, that if I simply take a deep breath and forget about the immediacy of success, everything will even out.  We've put out a damn good product, after all, and I've always lived by the theory that the cream rises.  And we're that cream.  But this doesn't stop the fear, doesn't stop the self-doubt from infiltrating my every waking thought.

I've wondered recently if this is something that will ever leave me.  I've wondered how I'd feel if (hell no-when!) I ever reach Amanda Hocking or JA Konrath levels of success.  Will the doubt leave then?  Will I finally be able to settle down and not constantly wonder if the next book will finally be the one that sends me down the eternal shitter where all failed authors land?  Will I stop looking at my life with a soul-crushing fear of failure?

Somehow I doubt it.  And there's that word again.

It keeps cropping back up.

Damn.

RJD