By Elle Marr
Publishing is a rollercoaster. The highs can be very high; and the lows, very low—sometimes, a full-gallon-of-Tillamook-ice-cream-low.
As authors we contend with the additional complication of often conflating our self-worth with these ups and downs. Career decisions can, in turn, stick with us long after the cardboard carton is trashed and the sugar high has dissipated. They keep us up at night, returning to the forefront of our thoughts right before we fall asleep, rendering us wide awake and agonizing over what might have been.
Author A.H. Kim can attest to how persistent these questions of “what if” were for her after her first novel, A Good Family, was released in 2020. Like so many authors who debuted during the pandemic, Kim’s in-person events were cancelled; and she was unable to meet readers face to face—a major goal of hers.
When her second novel Relative Sensibility (a modern retelling of Sense & Sensibility) was set to publish, she knew she didn’t want to spend the next few years questioning whether she could have improved the outcome of her book’s launch. Determined to have no regrets, she hired an outside publicist,.
Cozy mystery author Jennifer J. Chow once considered a different decision that many writers weigh. Back in 2015, she debated whether to publish a manuscript herself or remain in the query trenches, targeting a traditional publisher. She ended up self-publishing, with a surprising plot twist: an editor at a Big 5 publisher read that story and offered her a deal.
My own publishing crossroads—the “Sliding Doors” moment that stayed with me years before I signed with my first literary agent—centered on an offer of publication. After years of writing and seeing multiple friends reach our mutual goal of getting an agent, then a publisher, I thought I’d jump at the chance.
Yet something about the offer felt off. It came from a small press, and the team seemed passionate about my manuscript; but I ultimately declined.
There wasn’t any one detail that turned my “maybe” into a “no, thank you.” Instead, it was a gut feeling that my manuscript—a romantic suspense that I had edited within an inch of its life during the previous two years—wasn’t what I wanted as my debut. I also had concerns about the small press’ editorial process.
Ultimately, it took me another manuscript and three more years to sign with a literary agent, then with my publisher two months after that.
It was only then that I thought to check in on my “former flame,” the small press that once wanted to make me a published author. It had folded. A few years into the pandemic, it came out that they had difficulty obtaining distribution, paying authors their royalties, paying their employees, and effectively editing their titles.
I felt a huge rush of relief, of course. But that didn’t negate the nights I spent sweating over a gallon of ice cream, wondering and agonizing, during the years between their offer and the offer I ultimately received from Thomas & Mercer.
Making major decisions over the course of your career is inevitable, and being confident in the “correct” answer is futile (because the correct answer is only clear in hindsight). It’s best to keep a garage freezer stocked with ice cream for just such an occasion.
And in my humble opinion, it’s always better to have lost sleep over a decision than to sit on the sidelines out of fear—to allow any opportunity to slip by during this unpredictable, magical ride of being an author.
