I don’t want to compare publishing a book to having a baby, but here I go.

Giving birth (which, full disclosure, I’ve been ringside for but not actually experienced) certainly gets the nod in terms of physical achievement and emotional payoff.

But damn if there aren’t similarities.

Primarily the long wait. You reach a point in both enterprises at which the work is done and all you can do is sit and wait for arrival. Like maturity or the 8:15 commuter train — it gets here when it gets here.

You spend months preparing and then suddenly, one morning, a switch is flipped on Amazon and kaboom — a baby.

As the proud author, I’m now wandering around the proverbial waiting room handing out Kindles and cigars and talking to anybody who wants to listen about how all this happened and where it can be purchased (and there, I now realize, are two more key differences between writing a book and bringing a human being into the world).

That’s about where the string runs out on this hastily-put-together analogy. Whereas with a baby this is the moment that the real work begins, with a book, as gratifying as the publication date is, it’s sort of the end of the road. Sure, there are marketing and promotional responsibilities to fulfill, and as the writer, you’ll follow the book’s progress for years. But it’s primarily a front-loaded effort. It’s less a chapter than an epilogue.

Yet it also represents something akin to a starting gun.

Within the next few days, the proud author, basking in the glory of the achievement and seeing his or her baby on the shelves (yet another key difference, I desperately hope) quickly feels his or her mind turning to the inevitable author’s question:

What’s next?