Has quarantine got you down? Well, let me tell you about the time that I was paid $20,000 to write a novel only to have the publisher ask for the money back…after the book was finished. I’m pretty sure it’ll make you feel better and maybe even motivate you to get back to your creative work.
For most of my professional life, I’ve been known for the live production I co-created called The Thorn. It’s basically the Passion of the Christ meets Cirque du Soleil and we still tour with it all over the US. Over the course of the past twenty years, I’ve had lots of different jobs — dug ditches, sold shoes, worked as a youth pastor, owned an outdoor store, and done lots of marketing. But the thing I’ve wanted to do since I was 12 years old was to be an author. Specifically, I wanted to be a novelist. I dreamed of being the next Jack London or Clive Cussler or Michael Crichton.
I got my first break as a writer when I was 29 and asked by my boss to co-author a book with him. After that, I went on to write another dozen books. Nothing I wrote went gangbusters but I did well enough that I was able to convince my publisher to sign me up for a three-book fiction deal. It was finally happening. I just knew I was going to be a big-time author. I had been preparing for this my entire life. Cue the Rocky soundtrack.
The Eden Project was the first installment of an action-adventure series where faith and science collide. The book was about the race to stop an evil scientist from infecting the world with a virus designed to kill all but the strongest among us. Well, truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes, truth follows fiction.
In the fall of 2008, I began writing The Eden Project and after 9 months of research, writing, and going back and forth with my editor, the final draft of the book was ready to send to the publisher. I felt good about it and just knew that this was going to be the start of something great. That is, until the day I got an official-looking letter in the mail, from my publisher.
Apparently, 2008 was what many were calling the beginning of the end for traditional publishing. A small Seattle online company called Amazon was taking over the bookseller space, forcing private bookstores to shutter. And a new thing known as e-books was threatening to take down the biggest publishing houses in the world. As the big dogs began to scramble to pivot and try to save their bottom line, one of the things they did was cut contracts to new authors.
And I was one of those authors.
The deal was dead. Not only was my book never going to see the light of day, but the publisher wanted me to send the advance back to them. I knew that if my book was actually any good, they would have found a way to publish it. I believed that I didn’t have what it took to be a fiction writer. I hit rock-bottom. I felt like a failure. As far as I was concerned, my days as an author were over. I stopped writing, doubled-down on my day job, and moved on. For the next three years, The Eden Project sat on a drive in my computer, patiently waiting for me to get over myself.
Then, one day I was reading an article about self-publishing and thought to myself, “How hard can that be? I can do that.” After all, the book was done and my publisher didn’t want it. Even though I’d always told myself that self-publishing wasn’t real publishing, I couldn’t stop thinking about the 90,000 words just sitting there, waiting to be read. I decided to go for it.
I spent the next few weeks doing all the things I needed to in order to get my book launched on Amazon. I re-wrote a few chapters, had it copy-edited, hired a cover designer and typesetter, secured an ISBN, and set up my Amazon selling account. Finally, I pressed publish on my computer and waited.
At first, nothing happened. But then, slowly, I started to see sales trickle in. One by one. I think I sold 15 books in the first week. The following week, I sold 25 more. I remember watching my numbers climb until, one day, I saw that my book had hit the #1 slot in techno-thrillers. Over the next year, I would sell more copies of The Eden Project than all of my other books, combined.
What did I learn from this?
You Don’t Need Permission
As Seth Godin says, don’t wait to be picked. 20 years ago, you couldn’t write a book without permission from a big publisher. You couldn’t get music into the world without a major label signing you on. You needed to go to film school to even hope to make real movies. And it took serious VC money to start a business. Not anymore. Now, anyone who wants to make something can do it without worrying about a gatekeeper.
Amazon makes it easy to write and publish your own book. Blogger Andy Weir published a series of fictional posts about a guy stuck on Mars. Eventually, he compiled the blogs together and sold a .99 Kindle book called The Martian. He did OK — it sold millions of copies and was made into a feature film starring Matt Damon. Christian fiction writer William Paul Young wrote The Shack and self-published it after being rejected by 26 publishers. It’s sold 23 million copies worldwide.
Justin Beiber, Shawn Mendes, and The Weeknd all shot to fame by putting out their music online. None of them had a contract, a label, or a publishing company behind them. Actors, influencers, and entrepreneurs have discovered that the internet offers what was so rare only a decade ago — an opportunity to put your work right in front of the people that could buy it, promote it and take it to the next level. Make a movie and put it on YouTube. Show off your musical chops on TikTok. Raise money for your new venture on Kickstarter or Fundable.
Do you have a dream in you waiting to be realized? Have you been waiting for someone else to give you permission to pursue it? Are you using the excuse of money or access or permission? Stop the excuses and start putting yourself out there. Who knows, you might have the next NYT bestseller or #1 Billboard hit in you just waiting to come out. Regardless, what you have to say, sing, or write matters, regardless of how many people see it. As Seth says, you can grow a thriving career through a minimum viable audience.
One more thing. You’d think I would have learned my lesson after publishing The Eden Project. Nope. I wrote that book 10 years ago and guess how many novels I’ve written since then? Exactly zero. And yet, my desire to be a full-time novelist hasn’t changed. So, part of the reason I’m writing this blog is that I want to be accountable to you. It’s time for me to get back to writing stories that I care about. Look for excerpts from my new book. I’ll be posting them to my website over the next few months. How about you? What steps are you going to take to get your work out into the wild?