When your confidence gets a take down

This week started off awesome, I had plans to get The Broken Pact out even though my focus had wavered a little and I was off schedule. But even though I was behind the week was fantastic at the beginning. I had run a promo on Blood Pact to get ready for The Broken Pact, and it did better than I had ever hoped it could. By the time it went off free promo it was #1 on the Free Young Adult Horror list on Amazon. My ego was huge, and I was ready to get the next one out. Hell I even had readers asking when The Broken Pact was coming, I hope that means they loved or at least liked Blood Pact and couldn’t wait to read it.

But then fast forward to Thursday morning. I get up to go to work and as my daily ritual goes I check Amazon for any reviews or sales before I even get out of bed. Yes, I pretty much sleep with my iPhone.

I found a new review on Amazon that morning. I was excited to see what it said and what they rated my book. The book I had taken what seemed like forever to work on and just as long to get the guts up to publish it let alone allow anyone to read it.

They gave me a 1 star rating. I think I almost cried. My feelings were a jumble of self-doubt with an equal mix of sadness and anger. I am not going to get into what the review said other than they said my book was horrible and that my characters were robots while also mentioning that they only read the first five pages. I would rather not dwell on that and have decided to go forward.

Do you know why? Because it is okay if not everyone likes my book or your book if you are a writer. It may just not be their cup of tea because I have plenty of people who DO enjoy my writing and the stories I have to tell. It may not be written all over Amazon, but people have come up to me in person and on my Facebook page and in messages.

And truthfully I think it was sad of me to dwell on one person’s opinion and let it shake me that way it did. I even talked about it in a writer’s group and found out that I am not alone and will be continuing my writing journey and telling my stories while improving my writing and even myself as a person.

I let my confidence get knocked down for a few days this time, but it will not happen again.