Cows Don't Care About Your Amazon Ranking

My second book, Supply Jane Clears the Way, launched today...

...which you probably don't know because I didn't do nearly enough marketing.

I should have built a lot more awareness. I should have hustled more. I should have had a month-long pre-launch social media calendar with engaging, informative content and increasingly aggressive calls to action.

I should have done everything I could to collect pre-orders which would bottle up for weeks and then gush forth mightily into a release-day sales spike that would bump up my Amazon ranking and jump start my success.

But I didn’t. I did, like, three Instagram posts and two podcasts.

And now it's too late.

I woke up this morning feeling guilty, like I really messed this launch up.

But then I looked outside.

October 26th is not only the day that Supply Jane Clears the Way is released into the world to help kids understand the concept of manufacturing bottlenecks in a fun, engaging, dragon-filled way...

It's also an incredible autumn day 🍁🍂, and I'm in Switzerland.

It may be Launch Day... but that's a completely arbitrary deadline. I chose October 26^th because it was a Tuesday and you’re supposed to release books on Tuesday, and other than that, there was no real logic. All this pressure I'm feeling? All this guilt? I imposed it upon myself.

That means I can un-impose it.

I can hike. I can relax. I can stop to take selfies with cows.

There are a million things I should be doing to bump up my Amazon rankings and set my book up for algorithmic success – I have reviews to request and Twitters to tweet and ARC readers to remind and podcasts to prepare for – but those can wait. I can take the time to go outside, to experience the timeless majesty of the mountains.

I can hike. I can relax. I can stop to take selfies with cows.

They don't care where my book is ranked on Amazon. They don't care how many prelaunch posts I put on Instagram.

They just chew their cud and nap and enjoy their idyllic alpine lives...

...seems like there's a lesson in there somewhere.