I knew from the time I was old enough to write that I wanted to be an author. After we got to write our own little books in my second grade class and have them bound with the fabric of our choice, I was hooked. I still have that wonderful, pink floral ultra-limited edition first (and only) printing!
As a kid, I believed becoming a world-famous author was just a matter of following a few simple steps:
Step One: Study English and creative writing in college.
Step Two: Write a book.
Step Three: Publish aforementioned book and become an international superstar.
But as you have probably already figured out, the path to becoming a published author can be outrageously nonlinear. And because I used to spend a lot of time wondering exactly how my favorite authors got themselves published in the first place, I figured I would share a few of the actual steps that led me down the road to publishing my debut novel Killing Sadie, the YA thriller filled with unreliable narrators and deadly secrets.
Step One: Study English and creative writing in college (okay, tracking perfectly to plan). Write for the comedy magazine doomed to shut down the moment you start contributing. Graduate during the midst of a massive recession, find a job as a junior copywriter at an advertising agency. Read: Commercial skills acquired.
Step Two: Eventually leave advertising for a job with a tech company in NYC, complete with a moving story that still makes me cry laughing! Convince boyfriend (now husband) to come along for the ride. Read: Career pivot acceptance unlocked.
Step Three: Spend fifteen years building a career as a marketing exec. Travel, meet marvelous people, wonder deep down if your childhood author dreams are unrealistic, a word that has echoed all around you for decades. Read: Comfort over dream, tension building.
Step Four: Return to your love of writing! Keep working full time while writing not one, not two, but three novels. Unsuccessfully query the first two novels. Successfully query the third novel and land a literary agent! Read: First signal the process is working.
Step Five: Move from NYC back to the Midwest. Add a dog and horse to the family. Experience intense imposter syndrome after the original novel, tweaked and tweaked again, was rejected. A lot. Write another novel that was also rejected. A lot. Read: Uncertain, but getting closer to the dream.
Step Six: Write another novel that has nothing to do with the original genres you thought you would explore, but find a deep love for it … hello, mysteries and unhinged thrillers. You were my first true love as a reader, after all. Read: Your inner child was so right.
Step Seven: Sign your first book deal! The call from my agent, while sitting in the parking lot outside my local library, made me literally scream for joy. Discover that for countless authors, their debut published work is very definitively NOT the first book they have ever written. Read: Grateful.
Step Eight: … REPEAT!
Hint: If you love the dash of equestrian life in Killing Sadie, a new super-secret thriller is in the works that you will no doubt adore!
The greatest thing I’ve learned along my author journey so far is that publishing is very much like an iceberg (ideally not one that will sink your dreams like a luxury oceanliner). There is the little bit that sticks out above the water – the bit that looks like success was easy, streamlined and perfectly linear. And then there is the MASSIVE amount of life experience, work, abandoned stories and occasional tears that hides below the surface.
Alas, there is no such thing as a real list of three easy steps that will lead to life as a published author. To quote The Princess Bride: Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
The good news? When there is no set path, your only choice is to follow that childhood voice, which if we’re lucky, gets louder not quieter. And I can happily say to second-grade me, full of unwavering belief in herself: You were really onto something – it just took a few years for the belief in adult me to catch up to your wildest dreams.
