Giving My ARC Readers My Book Was Harder Than Writing

I Get Nervous Posting Memes, So Imagine Sending Out a Novel

I’ve always been nervous putting things out into the world.

Honestly, sometimes I get anxious posting a dumb meme on Facebook. Sometimes even sending certain text messages makes me overthink how people will take it.

So sending out my first novel to my ARC readers?

Yeah… that felt completely different.

Especially because this wasn’t just a made-up story I threw together for entertainment. Even though Not My Brother’s Keeper is fiction, there’s a lot of real life inside it. Real emotions. Real pain. Real family history. Real fears.

For years, I kept the manuscript mostly to myself.

Part of that was perfectionism. Part of it was fear of judgment. And part of it, honestly, was probably fear of being emotionally seen in a way I wasn’t used to.

Then Came The Panic Checking

After I finally hit send, my brain immediately went into panic mode.

Not about the story itself at first either.

Spelling errors.

Seriously.

I started checking all the subject lines over and over, hoping they all matched and were spelled correctly. You see people online tear each other apart over grammar mistakes all the time, and when you’re trying to promote your writing, it feels even more brutal. Like one simple mistake could suddenly make people judge everything else you worked so hard on.

The reality is, I was exhausted.

I had worked all day, came home late, helped get the kids ready for bed, barely had enough time to spend with my boys, and then tried to rush around sending more than twenty emails to my ARC readers who I respect because I had promised myself I’d get them out that night.

That’s one of my flaws. I overpromise things without always thinking about time, exhaustion, or real life getting in the way.

By the time I finished sending everything out, I just felt tired and hoped my exhausted brain hadn’t accidentally sent complete junk to all my readers.

Then I started rereading the book again for probably the 300th time like I was somehow going to magically prevent myself from looking like an idiot, even though the emails were already sent and my computer skills are limited to aggressively Googling problems and hoping for the best.

I was so mentally drained by that point that I didn’t even put my phone on the charger correctly and ended up going to work the next day with my battery sitting at twenty-something percent.

Vulnerability Feels Different For Men

I’ve already opened up a lot in some of my earlier articles, especially in my first post, How Empathy Kept Me Alive. So part of me figured if somebody was going to judge me or make fun of me for being emotional, they probably already had by now.

But that fear still doesn’t fully go away.

Especially as a man.

Being soft and vulnerable isn’t exactly something most guys pound their chest about while drinking beer and bullshitting with their friends. Most of us grow up learning how to hide things instead. Stay tough. Keep moving. Don’t talk too much about what’s really going on inside your head.

And honestly, more than being scared of looking soft, I was scared of hurting or embarrassing people I care about.

I never started writing to attack people or put anyone down. Even the people I write about the most, I still care deeply about.

Anyone who truly knows me knows I usually have good intentions. I care about people and their feelings probably more than I should sometimes. Maybe that’s because I know how human we all are.

I’ve made more mistakes in my life than I can count, so I’ve never really felt comfortable judging other people for theirs. Everybody is fighting something. Everybody carries their own pain, guilt, regrets, or demons in different ways.

I’m just trying to get through life like everyone else, become a better man than I used to be, and hopefully leave this world a little better for my kids, my niece, and my nephews.

Waiting For Feedback From My ARC Readers Was Its Own Kind Of Torture

Ever since I sent the ARC copies out, I’ve been checking my email nonstop waiting for feedback.

And by nonstop, I mean I’ve probably only opened my email about 128 times already hoping somebody magically finished the entire book in fifteen minutes because I’m anxious to hear what people think.

Well… unless it’s bad feedback. Then maybe they can take their time.

But honestly, I’ve waited years for this moment.

Years wondering if this thing I created quietly from my living room actually connected with people the way it connected inside my own head. Years wondering if my thoughts, experiences, and emotions actually made for a compelling story or if I was just some emotional crybaby stretching my feelings out over a few hundred pages with slightly better formatting.

That’s probably the weirdest part about finally letting people read your work.

You spend years privately convincing yourself the story matters, then suddenly other people get to decide if they feel anything from it too.

Letting Go Felt Weird Too

One thing I wasn’t fully prepared for was the emptiness that came after finally sending the book out.

I’ve spent so many years thinking about this story, working on it privately, rewriting it, doubting it, rereading it, and carrying it around in my head that finally letting other people have it felt strangely emotional.

Like it wasn’t fully mine anymore.

Honestly, it reminded me a little of dropping your kid off at school for the first time. You spend years helping shape something, protecting it, hoping you did enough for it, and then one day it has to go out into the world without you standing beside it.

And deep down, you’re also hoping the little jerk doesn’t go out there and embarrass you in public.

Now the book is sitting in other people’s hands. Some of my ARC readers I know really well. Some I don’t know nearly as much.

And as weird as it sounds, there’s a vulnerable feeling that comes with not knowing what people honestly think once they’re alone with your work.

I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback so far, which has honestly meant more to me than most people probably realize.

But I also know once this thing fully enters the real world, eventually somebody is going to hate it. That’s just reality.

I just hope I don’t respond by trying to track down their IP address and accidentally reconnecting with my old Youngstown roots.

And honestly, as weird as the emptiness feels, there’s also a small part of me excited to eventually fill that space again once I start the next book 😉

More Than Anything, I Don’t Want To Hurt The People I Love

Part of what makes putting this book into the world so emotionally complicated is knowing that once it’s public, people will forever connect me and my family to parts of this story.

And honestly, that scares me more than bad reviews.

I’ve always felt like one of the people in my family others could lean on when things got hard. So putting pieces of our struggles, pain, mistakes, addiction, grief, and dysfunction out into the world comes with a heavy feeling attached to it.

Not because I’m ashamed of where we came from.

But because I never want the people I love to feel exposed, embarrassed, or reduced down to the worst moments of their lives.

As much as I want to honor my mother and show the world she raised a decent man who was willing to put his fears aside and create something honest, I also don’t want people looking at my family like we’re just a bunch of broken people who never got anything right.

Because that’s not true either.

Yeah, we’ve made mistakes. We’ve hurt people. We’ve embarrassed ourselves. We’ve made life harder on ourselves more times than I can count.

But we’ve also kept going.

And honestly, I think that’s what I hope people understand most after reading my book.

Not that we were perfect.

Not that we handled everything the right way.

But that people can struggle, fail, fall apart, and still fight their way through adversity while trying to become better human beings on the other side of it.

So Why Put It Out There At All?

Honestly, I’ve asked myself that question a lot lately.

Why willingly put yourself in a position to be judged, criticized, misunderstood, or emotionally exposed?

It certainly wasn’t because I thought my chances were great that writing one book would make me rich or famous.

Part of it is the promise I made to myself and to my mother.

Part of it is because writing this book became the best therapy I could imagine for myself, even without fully realizing that’s what I was doing while writing it.

And honestly, part of it is because I’m tired of pretending people have to fit into some specific mold all the time.

Especially men.

Most of us grow up feeling like we have to fit some version of toughness that leaves very little room for honesty, emotion, fear, regret, empathy, or vulnerability unless it’s hidden behind jokes, anger, or silence.

I’m not saying everybody needs to spill their emotions all over the internet or start writing books about their trauma.

I just think honesty can be refreshing.

And maybe if more people were willing to be a little more open about their struggles, mistakes, fears, and imperfections, we’d spend less time dividing each other and more time understanding each other.

I don’t have life figured out.

I’m still growing. Still screwing up. Still overthinking things way too much.

But for the first time in a long time, I finally feel like I stopped hiding something that mattered to me by letting my ARC readers see my book.

And honestly, that feels pretty good.

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