Not a get-rich-quick scheme
In the end, the act of writing a book must be its own reward
Days before the Covid pandemic began in earnest, in March of 2020, I began writing a memoir about my childhood in Buffalo, NY. I wanted to tell my story of growing up, the youngest of six in a big, Irish family, with a witty, Army veteran mom, my sister Ellen, who had kidney disease then considered terminal, and my father, whose alcoholism and infidelities drove us to distraction when we weren’t anxious about our sister.
The book, which I titled Saving Ellen, lent structure to my lockdown days. The book gave me a reason to get up every morning at 5:30, start a fire in the wood stove of my barn office and write for two hours before walking the 100 yards or so back to the house to make breakfast.
This week, Skyhorse Publishing offered me a contract to publish the book in the next 18 months.
I always thought I would feel euphoria after getting offered a contract. And I did feel pretty good for a while. But it’s been a long road, and there is more work to do.
It took me about a year and a half to write the book. Then it took about three months to write a book proposal, which publishers require — a detailed marketing plan for selling the book. When I finished, I thought I was ready.
But the first thing I discovered was that the publishing industry, in general, considers memoir to be poison unless the author is a celebrity, a sports star, a serial killer or has 100,000 twitter followers. Good writing is not nearly enough. You need, as they say, “a platform.”
I didn’t have one.
So it took 34 rejections over six months of queries before an agent agreed to represent me. (Max Sinsheimer, I owe you.)
Max went to work, but collected nearly 40 rejections from publishing houses before Skyhorse offered a deal.
Once the book is out in the world, only hard work - and the kindness of readers - will overcome the grim statistics. Consider these, compiled by industry analyst Kristen McLean from NPD BookScan. She included this research during a lively discussion in the comments section of Lincoln Michel’s substack, “Counter Craft.” McLean said that in August of 2022, sales of about 45,000 newly-released books over the previous 52 weeks from the top 10 American publishers showed the following:
51 percent of all books published sold between 12 and 999 copies;
21.6 percent sold between 1,000 and 4,999 copies;
5.5 percent sold between 5,000 and 9,999 copies;
3.4 percent sold between 10,000 and 19,999 copies;
2.2 percent sold between 20,000 and 49,999 copies;
0.7 percent sold between 50,000 and 99,999 copies;
0.4 percent sold more than 100,000 copies.
When I read that, I printed out a sheet with the statistics and put it on my office wall. It was a reminder that for most, writing a book is hardly a get-rich-quick scheme.
Although I’m thrilled about finding a publisher, in the end, the act of writing has to be its own reward. And rewarding it was: No matter how my book sells, I loved writing it.
That creative outlet kept me sane during that long pandemic year. Every week I emailed excerpts to my friend Roberta Baskin, hunkered down in Virginia, and we called one another every Sunday at 4 p.m. to talk over my writing and her own. Her encouragement, the support of my family, including my brother Tim and sister Claudia, and the help of my writing group, Mystic Writers, kept me going.
The book gave me a reason to read through all the diaries I had kept since I was 12 years old. Until the pandemic, I had never bothered to re-read them. They were in crates in the attic, covered in dust.
By the end of reading dozens of notebooks, I knew I had a narrative arc for a book. But I learned a few things, too.
I found out that I really had gone into the right profession, because even as a teenager I was a little reporter, scribbling whole conversations and writing pages of dialogue and scenes in my diary.
My mother was funnier than I remembered, dishing out one-liners over dinner that I wrote down afterwards, after I stopped laughing. (I had forgotten entirely that she stood up one day and said mockingly, “If I didn’t have you goddamn kids holding me back, I would be a high-class streetwalker in Miami right now!”) I felt so grateful to 15-year-old me for helping 60-something me hear my mother’s voice again. She died when I was 20, but reading those old journals brought her back so vividly I could almost sense her pulling up a chair in the barn and teasing me.
My father’s drunken scenes were a combination of humor, terror and madness. I ended up putting flags on all the journal entries where I mentioned drinking and soon several diaries had little tags sticking out of dozens of pages.
And, of course, Ellen, whose big heart and sly wit masked all the suffering from years of hospitalizations, and who remains in my memory an example of quiet, uncomplaining courage.
I recorded how many words I had written by certain dates on a whiteboard which I still have: March 11, 2020, 1,200 words; by Nov, 1, of that year, I had, 20,000 words; but then they all came faster - March 4, 2021, 50,688 words, and by July of 2021, more than 102,000 words.
And now, here I am: A project that sustained me during those dark months of the pandemic will soon become a published book.
No matter what happens, thank you for reading - and for walking with me for part of this work in progress. I would be honored if you stayed for the rest of the journey!
Love this. You are a captivating writer.
Where do I sign up to make sure I can purchase a copy “hot off the press?” ❤️