Thanks to the explosion of the eBook market, many authors have taken the plunge into the world of self-publishing. It’s exciting but also overwhelming when you swim in new waters and it’s hard to know what to expect. I offer this list as a way to reassure you that you are simply experiencing common things that happen in the self-publishing experience.

Things will go wrong. Formatters won’t receive checks, proofreaders will miss typos, email programs will go splooey. Don’t take it personally, it happens to all of us.

You’ll lose a lot of sleep. Not necessarily from worrying, but just from the sheer volume of things you need to do to get to market. And you’ll probably dream about all the stuff you forgot to do that day as well. Once the book has been published and you have your marketing in place, you’ll catch on your sleep.

You’ll have disappointments. No matter how much you tell yourself you don’t expect anything. That you’ll just hit the publish button and ‘see what happens.’ If we’re being honest, we do expect things. It’s just human nature to wonder why your cousin didn’t buy your book, why everyone you’ve ever met hasn’t called to congratulate you, why your social media posts about the publication haven’t gone viral. Or any number of things. Just try not to be too hard on yourself or your friends and family. If necessary, take a deep breath, regroup and rework your plan.

You’ll feel you should be doing something. The lead-up to publishing your book had you busy every spare moment. You had a list. You checked off items as you completed them. You added to the list. Now that the book has been published, you’re at odds about what to do. First take a couple days and just catch up on sleep and call your mom or anybody else you’ve been ignoring. After you’ve refreshed yourself, develop your marketing plan if you don’t have one or refine it if you do.

Shoulda woulda coulda. Once that book is out there you will think of all the things you should’ve added, changed or removed from it. You’ll regret not doing one more edit or revision. You may even consider unpublishing it until you ‘fix’ whatever is wrong with it. That’s just the first time publishing jitters. Leave it be. Let people read it. Let the reviews come in. You can always update/revise the book later, once you have a little more perspective and a lot less worry happening in your head.

Get some perspective. The best piece of advice I could give you is to give yourself a break. You’ve delved into this completely alien world of self-publishing and you aren’t going to be an expert at it right out of the gate. Take pride in the fact that you finished a book and published it. That you had the guts to do that. Enjoy that for a bit. And once you feel like you’ve caught your breath, take on the next leg of the journey. Yes, I’m talking about book marketing, developing an email list, and figuring out your next book. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to learn it all and do it all at once or in six months. Experience. Trial and error. All part of the journey. Learn to enjoy it.