Good Surprise!

With my writing I'm a plotter. With my life I'm a planner. I make long copious lists--even lists I use over and over again for trips. I do timelines and calendars for each and every story.

I like things going the way I expect them to. I like things neat and orderly (just pay no attention to my desk, okay?). I don't mind punting so much, it's just that when things don't go according to plan sometimes that's because they are going wrong.

But there I was, almost three weeks ago, approaching the June 6 paperback release of The Raven's Revenge with the usual Excel spreadsheet, making sure everything happened as it should, when . . .

(cue suspenseful music)

. . . in a fit of writerly procrastination, I was playing follow the link with one that had suddenly appeared on the page for my RT review, and I discovered that my book was available at Amazon three weeks ahead of schedule!

No cover.
Just the blurb.
But it was listed as In Stock.

It was a true OMG moment. I squeed at the DH. I called my daughter. And then I started watching my Amazon ranking, waiting for something to happen.

Fortunately, it did. People started buying the book. The cover showed up. Amazon linked it to the Kindle version. Which meant I could get back to my life-as-normal (whatever that is).

Except that I was mailing out postcards, blogging, emailing my yahoo group and doing all my publicity about three weeks earlier than I had expected.

It just goes to show you, sometimes when things don't go according to plan, it can be a good surprise.

ETA: OMG and now I just found out it's also up at Barnes & Noble!