Writing a book is solitary confinement. You sit in a room. You stare at a blinking cursor. You invent problems. It's safe in there because nobody can tell you you're wrong.

Then you finish. You have to open the door.

I decided to run an ARC campaign for This Book May Kill You. I needed eyes on the text before the final release. I needed to know if the pacing worked. I needed to find the typos my brain refuses to see.

The process is simple on paper. You put out a call. You ask for volunteers. You promise them a free book in exchange for their honest opinion.

I posted the link. I waited.

People actually signed up. Strangers. Friends. People I suspect hate me. They all put their emails in the box. They volunteered to read a book that explicitly threatens them in the title.

I sent the files out today. The document isn't mine anymore. It lives on their Kindles and iPads now. They're reading the jokes. Judging the plot. Finding every hole I convinced myself didn't exist.

Or they're not reading it at all.

That's the real fear. Not that they'll hate it. That they'll start it, lose interest on page twelve, and let it sit there. Unfinished. Unremarked upon. A file taking up space on a device they forgot about.

I asked for no-punches-pulled feedback. What I fear is silence.

Now I wait.