People want different things from writing a book. The first step you must take is to ask yourself: “What do I want?” and actually get to the rock bottom of the truth.
For many people, that is difficult. Too difficult. Some people (me) only get halfway there, but I freely admit I don’t know what I want most of the time.1
So there I was with my cursor perpetually on the SEND button sending my manuscript out to real agents and publishers (not those poseur ebook publishers) and getting nowhere. Meh, I don’t blame the early rejections. My blurb sucked and so did my beginning (which I rewrote) and my tag line was apparently only appropriate for my blog.
I retooled and sent out another round. Meanwhile, I saw that an in-real-life critique group friend I’d had back in the day and had gotten published by her chosen publisher was talking up ebooks. Well. If she had no problem with it, maybe I should just peek. One night, after another long shift of medical transcriptioning, I decided to browse the poseur ebook publishers.
I found one whose blurb was satisfactory, so I bought it and read it. It was good. It was really good. I bought another one from a different ebook publishing house. Also good. A third, from a third ebook publishing house. Excellent, in fact.
After another spate of flat rejections, I started sending it to ebook publishers. Lo and behold, I got one rather complimentary rejection with several suggestions I implemented immediately. I got a couple of other complimentary rejections, and a few more. People liked it, but they didn’t know what it was, precisely, or what to call it.
That was encouraging, but it was still a wall. At least I knew I could still write.
Yet I despaired and my husband finally said (quite innocently) (it was cute), “Why don’t you publish it yourself?”
That sparked the REEEEist REEEE that ever was REEEEd.
YOU CAN’T DO THAT! IT’S NOT ALLOWED!
And that would make me no better than Judy the MT.
He was completely confused. “You publish your cross-stitch patterns. You already have the skills to do it.”
THAT’S DIFFERENT!
I REEEEd for days.
The problem was … in between those very complimentary rejections and the odd editorial suggestion here and there, I was fiddling with covers and doing the typesetting to create a pretty galley. I kept that part to myself. It was my dirty little secret because yes, I did have the chops to do it myself, I didn’t trust what a publisher would do with it, so I’d already begun in the hopes I could say, “Yeah, hey, uh … could you use this cover? And this typesetting?”2 I was halfway out the door of my church, but I was afraid of the heat I’d take.
“Look, do you want people to read it?” Dude asked me.
“Yes.”
“Then put it out there. Who’s it going to hurt?”
MY FEELINGS! MY PRIDE! WHAT IF THEY DON’T LIKE IT? WHAT IF THEY SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT ME ON THE INTERNET?! WHAT IF SIMON & SCHUSTER WANTS TO DESTROY MY CAREER?! REEEEEEEEEEEEE
Then. Then. THEN.
He used The Words on me.
“Remind me who said, ‘The question is not ‘Who’s going to let me?’ The question is ‘Who’s going to stop me?’”
I should never have given him Rand.
NOTE
2025-08-25:
The second half of this post is a how-to and I decided to make it its own post. I’ll post the link here once I’ve cleaned it up a bit.
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1. What I want is to sit on my ass in a lovely home I don’t have to clean so I can spend my time writing or reading and codding around on the internet, not having to worry about money. I want to travel well and when I am doing none of the above, I want to play golf (yes really). But no self-respecting libertarian likes to admit they just want to be aimless with no money worries.
2. You know that point in a job you hate when you’re calling in all the time because you hate it but you haven’t yet figured out that you should probably just quit? But you don’t? Because you’re kind of afraid to because you don’t have another gig lined up yet? No? Just me?