Hello, my friends, how are you? Back to work and back in the old routine
now? Or did you engineer a major life change for 2019, and you have changed jobs
or retired or embarked upon a new adventure? Do share! I have decided to start
2019 without any formal New Year’s Resolutions. In previous years this is the
day when I would sit at my computer, scribble notes in my diary, and attempt to
plan a rigid structure for writing new books, updating my blogs, finding
freelance work and building my brand. Inevitably I would be distracted by
domestic challenges, supporting friends and family members, and my own
spiritual development. And I didn’t create the magical, easy career as a writer
that I dreamed about.
Now I have seen the light, as it were. I know how the industry works. I have
done a lot of research, tried and failed a lot of systems and projects, and
learned a lot about my place in the book world. Shortly before Christmas I
watched a documentary on Sky Arts featuring the food critic Giles Coren, and his
journey as a failed author (his words). I learned that he was paid a very
generous advance of £30k to publish a literary novel about ten years ago, and
it didn’t sell. Or at least, it didn’t sell enough copies to make him a success
by industry standards. With his established career as a journalist and his privilege
to know the right people in the right places, he would have expected more, and
he admitted that. I enjoyed watching the documentary.
You would think that I came away feeling deflated and defeated. I am
most definitely a failed author by those standards. Nobody has ever paid me an
advance for a novel, I have never been offered a book contract by a publisher,
and I don’t have an agent. Everything has been done independently, on a very
low (non-existent) budget, with very little emotional support from people
around me. And I am proud of what I have achieved. Ok, nobody knows about my books.
Most people don’t know that I have 5 published books in the Redcliffe novels
series, or that I have published 3 standalone novels, half a dozen short
stories, and have run two blogs for almost ten years. None of that matters,
because I am a failed author. Well, guess what? I refuse to back down, and I refuse
to give up. There are more novels waiting to be published, and quite a few prestigious
agents are open for submissions this year. I will try again. We will not back
down!
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