Hello, friends!
In the process of creating a new website, I lost my previous blog posts, so I’m taking the opportunity to start fresh. I haven’t been active online for a while, so I thought an introductory post would make for a good beginning.
As of writing this, I am 32 years old. I’ve been writing novels since I was 15 (hey, that’s over half my life!). Writing fiction has defined my life in so many ways, but the journey has definitely not been an easy or straightforward path. I realize I’m at the risk of tangents, so I’m going to sum up the journey thus far and how it relates to my immediate plans.
About 10 years ago, I started actively seeking representation and pursuing the traditional publishing process. I was extremely active on Twitter, I started going to conferences, querying agents, and taking my writing seriously. After garnering the interest of an indie press, I was able to find an agent to represent me. He then advised that I not publish with the indie press, and after many, many publisher rejections, back into the writing slog I went.
I sent the draft of what is now The Alchemy of Letting Go to my agent in early March 2020 (we all know how that went). I was still writing, but I was increasingly unhappy with my publishing situation. For so long, the goal was to get an agent, and I didn’t look beyond that. No one really talks about how the goalposts keep moving and the Sisyphean game never ends.
In August 2021, I got an email that changed my life (or so I hoped). My agent had secured a deal with a publisher, and my book would actually be in print. I was finally going to be a traditionally published author.
The editor who acquired my book was phenomenal. She understood my intentions and the story I was trying to tell, and she took what I had and elevated it in a way I never thought possible. Editing was exhausting sometimes–after long shifts at the library, then coming home and putting my daughter to bed, I would stay up past midnight to get it done. But the process was nothing short of magical. During those stressful months, my book transformed.
Things went downhill from there. There were several reasons, most out of my control. Firstly, my editor (rightfully) left the company, and I no longer had a point of contact or an advocate. The only person who responded to my emails was a random marketing assistant, so I ended up going through her for everything. The company was late to pay me, and my hands-off agent didn’t do anything about it until I took initiative. The publication date was pushed, so events got cancelled.
Underlying all of this was the fact that the publisher didn’t know how to sell my book. They took a contemporary fantasy/gothic horror novel, gave it a realistic fiction cover, and tried to sell it as a social-emotional learning book. The readers that would be interested in my type of story never even gave it a chance, and the readers who wanted something realistic bounced off. My debut year was rough, especially as it became clear that my publisher was not interested in giving my book any sort of marketing push.
It got worse after that. Bookstores that I’d be doing events for wanted to purchase my book, but couldn’t, because it was out of stock at their distributor. So not only were they not marketing my book, they weren’t even making it available to bookstores that wanted to buy it.
The way the years following my debut went weren’t entirely the fault of my publisher and agent. I also went through a divorce, and finally explored treatment for my chronic anxiety. I was writing but I wasn’t finishing any projects. I fired my agent and never queried new ones. I couldn’t go on social media without feeling like I was being crushed, so I stopped going on it all together. I wouldn’t reply to emails from colleagues for months, or sometimes at all. I became addicted to Sudoku.
Then, two months ago, something happened that rewired the way I think about writing and publishing. I found out that The Alchemy of Letting Go was officially out of print. I found out on my own, accidentally. No one told me. The publisher didn’t tell me, my former agent and agency didn’t tell me. It was a shock. It was awful. I was at work, and I cried. Because for those past three years, that book was the only thread holding my “career” together. And the thread finally snapped.
First I was sad, and then I was angry. I hadn’t been angry about publishing yet during all this. I had felt like I had failed, like I didn’t do enough, like yes, there were many things out of my control, but that there were just as many within my control that I wasn’t doing. This time, however, I was pissed off.
The thing you have to know about me is that I hold grudges, and that I will happily do things out of spite. Spite is an amazing motivator. I took that anger and I decided to use it as an opportunity. With my book out of print, all of the rights returned to me. All of them. And that’s huge, because now instead of shilling a book that was no longer making me money (I never earned out my advance), I had a book I could sell on my own terms. I could build a career not on the foundation of a publisher that wronged me in many ways, but on the foundation of my own decisions.
That brings us to now. I am currently in the process of republishing The Alchemy of Letting Go as an ebook and print book. I had a good friend of mine do the artwork for a new cover that better aligns with my book’s genre and vibe. I’m learning, slowly, about book formatting. I’m (re)learning about self-publishing and the current market (the last time I had seriously looked into independently publishing anything was in 2016, so my knowledge is woefully out of date). I’m on track to release it next month, so I will be doing a cover reveal soon!
After that, I will be working on independently publishing some of my other work. I think a part of me, until recently, thought that I would get an agent again eventually and try to traditionally publish. I didn’t want to “give up.” But what I’ve realized is that these past few years, I’d given up on myself. I’d stopped trusting myself to be able to competently write and market anything. But here’s the thing: I’m very competent, and I’m very stubborn. No matter how it goes, I want to be able to move forward confidently with my own choices, not leave it in anyone else’s hands.
The past few months have been like resurfacing from a dark pool. I feel set free, in a way, and because of that I’ve been writing and finishing projects. My mood and anxiety has improved, too, thanks to modern medicine, and overall my mental health is much better. So much so that I’ve been dipping my toes back into social media, and wandering back into a community that I’ve essentially been hiding from for several years. For the first time in a long time, the thought of my writing and publishing career doesn’t cause feelings of grief, regret, dread. Instead it feels optimistic. I can finally look to the future instead of looking back. Considering how inextricable writing has become to my sense of self (again, I’ve been writing novels for more than half my life), this new perspective is life changing.
This ended up being a little more tangent-y than I anticipated, but I hope you have a better understanding of where I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. I’ll be posting more regular updates about my projects from now on, so check back soon.
Thanks for reading.
Your friend,
Amber
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