A Writer's Life is a Snow Globe Filled With Sand

It's not just hard work and talent. Sometimes, it's luck. Here's why that feels awful.

Here’s a romance trilogy I wrote for Kensington a few years ago. I killed myself meeting these deadlines, working without sleep for days at a time. Once, I actually lay my forehead on the keyboard and cried out of pure exhaustion. In the end, I figured out a Bangladeshi garment worker makes more money than I did writing this series. And no, I’m not joking.

I’ve been in the publishing game a long, long time.

So long, in fact, that I feel as world-weary and resigned to the predations of my business as any old bawd on a street corner: the roots are in desperate need of a touchup, boobs look like deflated punching bags, and underneath the garish eyeshadow is the thousand-yard stare of a seasoned pro.

Do your worst. I eat guys like you for breakfast.

I finished writing my latest book on March 9, 2020, which also happens to be when Italy went on a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown. We were washing our groceries then, clueless about the actual transmissibility of the virus, and sickened by the ballooning number of dead. The coronavirus hit Italy hard. All of these factors played into my psychological exhaustion when, at long last, my novel THE GROWING SEASON was completed.

I then set out to find a new agent, one that specialized in what my industry calls “women’s fiction,” as sexist a term as ever there was. A novel featuring a male protagonist is merely fiction, but a novel featuring female protagonists is women’s fiction?

You bet.

Finding a new agent—even for a veteran like me—is not easy. 98-99% of all manuscripts that cross an agent’s desk are rejected. Quite frankly, most of them should be. None of the arts suffers from Dunning-Kruger quite like writing. You remember what Dunning-Kruger is, right? It’s when people with low ability overestimate their own aptitude. Trump, for instance.

Unfortunately, anyone who composes a decent email thinks they can write a book.

For my erotic romances, I used the pen name Angelika Helsing. Carnal Sacrifice takes place in the Peruvian Andes and involves a woman trying to lift a curse by presenting herself as a carnal sacrifice. Two days after the book was released, the publisher went bankrupt.

Better writers than I am are struggling just as hard. We are all being crushed beneath the wheels of free content provided by Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, by a non-reading public, by fierce competition for the ears and eyes of American consumers. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are closing, 98% of all books fail to sell even 5,000 copies, and yet Snoop Dogg’s cookbook, From Crook to Cook sold 205,000 copies in 2020 alone, which kind of gives you an idea of why publishers might be reluctant to roll the dice on a book written by an unknown. Even though I’ve put in my time. Even though I’ve done my apprenticeship. It’s not always enough to get your foot in the door.

There are some phenomenal writers out there who can’t even land an agent. There are other writers—and I know them—who’ve gotten $250,000 advances and produced unreadable dreck. That’s how it goes in all the arts. But writers in particular are God’s private gag reel. Nothing’s funnier than seeing the look on writers’ faces when E.L. James lands another spot on the NY Times Bestsellers’ List.

When I was nineteen, I wrote this fluffy little meringue of a book out of sheer frustration. College guys had no idea what they were doing in the boudoir. Then it got picked up by John Grisham’s agent and sold at auction. I was on every daytime talk show except Oprah. The book was translated into multiple languages, which is a joke because, in all candor, the book is awful.

No one in publishing has any idea what’s going to sell. Writers certainly don’t. Even writing for Cappuccino, I’m often surprised to see which articles do and don’t catch fire. Sometimes, it feels as though unseen forces are at work, and we writers just keep slashing away in the dark. Tilting at windmills. Terminally clueless.

When I finally landed my agent, I knew right away we were the right fit. Our first conversation lasted for two hours. I liked her personally as much as I respected her professionally. That’s rarer than you think. I also trust her. A lot. She’s earned that trust by always being straight with me—and her suggestions for improving my work are unerring.

Then the submission process began again, only this time it was my agent sending out the manuscript to editors at various publishing companies. And the rejections came rolling in, only more politely worded. “Loved the writing, but didn’t connect with the characters” is shorthand for any book an editor doesn’t love enough to champion.

To be fair, the book is probably more literary than commercial. I have four point-of-view characters, which prevents me from doing a deep dive into any one of them, and my characters are more fascinating than they are traditionally “likable.” I hate likable. It’s anodyne. Give me interesting any day. But that can be a tough sell in women’s fiction.

And now I must face an uncomfortable truth: the possibility that I won’t sell this book. Most writers would never admit that, but I will. I feel zero shame in confessing to a failure. Failure has the power to turn anyone into an unstoppable badass. Not bitter. Just real.

I was asked by Kensington Books to contribute a novella to this anthology, which I genuinely enjoyed writing. Publisher’s Weekly listed it in its annual “Top 5 Summer Reads.” You’d think a book with two name-brand authors (Lori Wilde and Janet Dailey, who is dead, so her contribution was ghostwritten, and yes, this is more common than you think) would sell well. No such luck. With free romance books and plenty of them on Kindle Unlimited, it’s hard to get readers to actually buy books these days.

It takes a lot of time to write a book, and more time than that to actually get proficient at writing. While composing THE GROWING SEASON, I was also ghostwriting a memoir for a client. That’s two books, two entirely separate realms of thought, 400 pages for one, 330 pages for the other. One of these books made me quite a lot of money. The other has so far made me nothing.

Do we gauge our success by the amount of money we’ve made? Of course, we do. For an American, it’s the only yardstick by which we measure abstract concepts like success.

But if I’m going to tell the truth, what bothers me far more than failing to sell my book is that I did everything “they” told me to and it still wasn’t enough. I learned my craft. I developed a hardcore work ethic. I wrote even when I would have rather plunged hot knitting needles into my eyeballs. Day in and day out, I sat my butt in the chair. I was professional. Courteous. Consistent. Easy to work with. Never missed a deadline. I learned not to take criticism personally or to lash out at people trying to help. Unless you’re a writer, it’s hard to imagine how these precepts are drilled into you. Above all, I was unfailingly persistent. I’ve been a published author since I was nineteen. And look, I’m still here.

So, why isn’t it gelling for me? Why is it these things sometimes don’t gel for any of us? Is it because the publishing industry is in desperate need of an overhaul? Sure. Is it because the book isn’t good enough to publish? Perhaps, although I doubt it.

The longer I’m in this business, the more I come to realize that once you’ve reached a certain level of proficiency, nine time out of ten, whether you “make it” is just pure dumb luck.

And we don’t control luck. It wouldn’t be luck if we did.

Publisher BookStrand was furious with me for getting my agent at the time involved in the negotiation of the contract. They did nothing to promote my book. Not even a mention in their newsletter. Previous to that, I had two agents vying to represent CATWALK, which was terrific, except that the agent I went with (who said he practically had the book sold) lost his chance when the interested editor quit her job. After that, he didn’t even try. And that’s just the way it goes in the publishing business.

But nobody tells you that, and it makes me angry. That’s why I’m telling you that. Whether you’re a writer, an artist, or an insurance actuary, much of your success is predicated on luck. Hard work and talent will only take you so far. The rest of it is a random collision of particles in the universe. The ancient Greeks used to call it fate.

Will my luck change? I have no idea. I could go the rest of my life and never land another book contract. Or I could get one tomorrow.

Either way, I’ll keep writing and above all, fighting for my little toehold on the greased rungs of the ladder. I will strive to make my work the best it can possibly be. More than that, I cannot do.

Nose to the grindstone, I begin again.

Do you have any trials and tribulations you’d like to share? Please feel free to comment below. You’ll get nothing but love from me.