Earlier this week, Felix Baumgartner, as you’ve probably heard, leaped from his capsule 24 miles above the earth, in a death-defying feat that stunned and amazed people all over the world.

All I can say is big deal. (Warning: spoof alert in effect).

I repeat, BIG DEAL. Baumgartner’s not the first one to put on a super suit (Anyone remember Frozone? Anyone?); embark on a tortuously slow journey; disconnect all forms of support; take a huge leap of faith; and hurtle at supersonic speed toward an unknown and possibly calamitous fate, occasionally spinning out of control, with only the thinnest of parachutes to stop him before the crash.

Self-published authors do it every day.

Need proof? I’ve got a super suit. They’re called pajamas (yes, the ones that make me feel and look like a big pink Po. That’s a Teletubby, BTW, not a missing vowel…) and fuzzy slippers. They insulate me on even the coldest days, and mine even come with an extra special feature that toughens my skin against unexpected critics and verbal smackdowns from folks bearing sour grapes in their hearts.

That 2 1/2 hour balloon climb Baumgartner undertook to get to that dizzying altitude? Let’s see him write a novel. Now that’s a long trip.

As far as support systems go, well, I think it’s safe to say that when authors decide to go rogue and self-publish, they give up a lot of that. No marketing department (although traditionally published authors don’t get much of that these days either); no editorial support; no agent negotiations. Self-published authors do without, and they have to do it all. Did you see the team Baumgartner had supporting him the day of the jump? I’d love to have a mission control center like that for Widow Woman…

Yes, we self-published authors take a huge leap of faith, too, and once the book is out there, it’s easy for things to start spinning so fast it feels like a loss of control. You know, the air in the publishing world can be pretty damned thin, too. If you’re lucky (and I am), you’ve at least got (if not an enormous mission control staff) a supportive network of family and friends and colleagues who will grab hold of you when that starts happening, jerk you back upright, and set you on your feet again. They are that thin, ultra-strong fabric that stands between you and the ground–which, I imagine, hurts when you hit it at the speed of sound. A lot.

So if self-publishing is so tough, then why do it?

I’d imagine that it’s for the same reason that Felix Baumgartner decided leaping from 24 miles up was a good thing to do.

He felt compelled? He felt exhilarated? It was a mountain he needed to climb, a challenge he had to accept, a moment in his life that was so great that he would always regret not having attempted it? It was something so vitally important for him to accomplish he was willing to risk a horrible death for it? All right, I concede on that last one–I like my book, but I don’t want to die for it. Just to clarify. But all of those other things?

Yeah. I get ’em. I’m a writer.

P.S. Way to go, Felix. Outrageous.