Chicken Little and the Big Scary

Baby-author share time again.

I have a love for SmartBitches that is rather like the love an old school doofy-assed TSTL heroine has for her brutal-and-sometimes-rapetastic hero.

I love SB.

I'm also terrified of SB.

I bring this up because with my upcoming debut release, I've been dipping a toe into the review-pool. I have been working with Lisa at Tasty Book Tours, and she's awesome and I'm very grateful for her assistance(took the nerve out of asking for reviewers!). But outside that, there are a few review sites I've been reading for years that I'd love to submit to--IN THEORY. Ones where I load up the submissions page, become terrified, and close it. CataRomance and SmartBitches to name a couple...

The last really can send me into a full-blown, neurotic-bunny flip-out. Panic? Yes. Irrational paranoia? You mean... like where I become convinced that the longer I stare at the submission-focused page, the more likely it is that some brilliant SB-aligned hacker has activated my laptop's webcam and... can see me staring at it with deer/headlights eyes, sheet-wrinkles on my cheek, and staggeringly awful bed head? Yeah, I pretty much do that too. I don't know why I'm always tempted to consider it right after waking up. Maybe I have dreams where I'm totally brave, and then the computer reminds me that insanity is not quite the same thing as bravery... and I quickly close the danged tab.

So far, my review-getting experience has been very positive, but all review-soliciting comes with the inevitability of unhappy words being written about poor MountainMan. It's a given, someone will hate the book. Actually, they'll probably hate the heroine--she's kind of a handful at times. Someone(possibly many someones) will hate the book. Period. End of story.

I know this. I have accepted this. I feel I'm more or less prepared for the eventuality. I have an emergency-bad-review-boogie-bag, complete with dark chocolate, deluxe mixed nuts, and tissues to vanquish looming sniffle-snot-bubbles. But for some reason, there are review blogs I just can't bring myself to submit to yet for no real reason other than I'm totally a chicken. SmartBitches is right at the top. No idea what to do about that. I'm hoping that will eventually work itself out of my system.

Until then let me say: Bock-bock. Bock.