Welcome to the Read Play Edit Blog Recovery Plan! This is how it works: while I’m writing up new posts and trying to replicate the ones I lost, my friends are standing in the gap with original and repurposed posts to keep me going. (I’m planning to be up and running by the new year.) This week I have a fabulous post from a friend of mine, writer April Line.
The Book Deal That Wasn’t
I am either extremely lucky or extremely talented. I have a much easier time accepting that I am damn lucky. I’m not sure I believe in talent. I believe in sweat and blood and hard, hard, hard work; in dedication, doggedness, the will to go on despite all the elements in the universe banding against you.
The first time I sent stories out into the world, there were six of them, I was just finishing undergrad, it was 2005, one of them was published in Fall ’06 Sou’Wester. The first time I sent essays into the world, about a year ago, there were six or so of them, and I received three personal notes from editors saying, “We like this, but it’s not a good fit for us at this time.” The first time I composed a #CNFtweet, it got published in the ever-so-prestigious pages of Creative Nonfiction. And the first time I ever gave my manuscript to an editor who was not a friend or someone who was being paid to read it, he offered me a book deal.
The editor, who I met because I waited on him and his ladyfriend in one of my sixteen jobs—darlings, Jamie keeps telling you and I’m here to affirm it, most writers (even incredibly lucky ones who work very hard) do not make any money writing—gave me his email address which I wrote on the back of my order pad and I sent him my manuscript the next morning.
He replied quickly (within weeks) and with high enthusiasm. He said he had some people to talk with on his end, but he Wanted My Book!
I got this news while I was at one of the residencies for my low-res MFA program. I told my two best friends and swore them to secrecy. “Don’t jinx it!” I told them. “It’s not a sure thing yet!” One friend bought me a drink. The other friend gave me a high five. We writers are an energetic bunch.
Two months later, I was still waiting to hear whether he’d talked to the people on his end.
As I sat down to write him a gloomy (but hopeful, I’m an optimist!) email thanking him for his time and asking for an update, I got one from him. It said, “So sorry, I’ve been dealing with this flood at my parents’ house, I have no Internet, I still want your book, the interns loved it, I’m waiting for my boss’s go-ahead. Then we can get you a contract and get started editing in earnest.”
It wasn’t until the next residency, four months longer still, that I got the news he had the official go-ahead from his boss. He said, “The official contract language is on his desk. Waiting for him to approve it, then we can get going.”
At that point, I stopped feeling excited. I began to believe that these people were messing with me. Not the editor. He was never anything but lovely and apologetic. But the company, honestly, is not the kind of publishing company I want for my breakout book. It’s the kind of company that will publish you in eBook for free, but asks you to go halvesies, then sell the books yourself, if you want a print run. The kind of company who puts up notice at its old website that the new one will be up by a date that comes and goes and comes again before the new website is operational. The kind of company that has no professional affiliations and no paid employees. The kind of company that’s run by a professor as a hobby, and a hobby that retains very little of his persistent affection.
I changed my mind a lot about whether to take this deal. My mentor and friends kept saying things along the lines of, “You can do better. You are so talented!”
But my long-term goal is to be a professor, and my thinking was, that will be tons easier if I have a book from any source. Not that becoming a professor is ever easy. Not that it’s even realistic to do obtain a tenure-track professorship with only an MFA anymore.
Finally, because I am hard at work finishing my MFA, doing an internship, working two (and often three) part-time jobs, being a mom, partner, and laundry-doer extraordinaire, I just wanted this one thing to feel like it was easy.
Eventually, though, after another several months of waiting, and after having some of the above-mentioned good luck, I decided maybe my friends and mentors were right. Maybe I can do better. I wanted to begin re-circulating my essays and add some new ones to the collection. I decided to end my relationship with the strange house. I avoided doing so for several weeks—I really hate confrontation—but finally, when I couldn’t delay it longer, I wrote to the dear editor, who by then I thought of as a friend, “I’m really sorry, but I don’t want to wait anymore. I’m withdrawing my manuscript from your queue.”
He was nothing but kindness and understanding. He writes, “It’s been fun, Line. Let me know what happens next for you. I have no doubt you’ll be successful.”
And you know what? I shed zero tears. I don’t even think of this as a setback. I think of it as the universe holding out on me so that I don’t give in to the temptation to settle, to be lazy, or to rest on my laurels, as they say. I know writers, however, who would’ve been devastated, who would’ve held out despite their better judgment alarms going off because book deals are rare like Ghost Orchids. Who would’ve let this dumb thing that happened keep them from writing, at least for a time.
Talent is meaningless, luck is fleeting. Write your butts off, ladies and gentlemen. And do it without the expectation of lucre, kudos, or anything other than self-congratulation. Write for the love of it, and then book deals that fall through won’t stop you.
April Line is an adjunct English professor at a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, and freelance writer/editor, a blogger, a mom, and, oh, about to finish her MFA. You can learn more about her at her website.
Tweet: Write for the love of it, so book deals that fall through won’t stop you.
Tweet: The book deal that wasn’t — read it and weep. Or laugh.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”