Join me on my road to publication (part 12)

My multipart series chronicles the ups and downs of an ordinary person striving to becoming a novelist in the real world. The series will span more than five decades.

If you’ve read parts 1-11, you can skip the intro (though it’s a fascinating intro 😀):

I’m the author of ten published novels, three novellas, and two nonfiction books. Seven of the novels, the three novellas, and one of the nonfiction books were traditionally published. I self-published the remaining three novels and nonfiction book.

This might seem impressive to some, but it goes without saying that I’m no Stephen King, especially when it comes to our respective bank accounts. Despite boasting over 70,000 purchases/downloads of my books, my total cash royalties are in the low five-figure range because (admittedly) most of the sales were free or inexpensive ebooks. Regardless, it’s likely there are authors who would trade places with me, which might be viewed as a depressing commentary on how extraordinarily difficult it is for a no-name to hit it big.

Though I’m not the only author on Substack chronicling something like this, my story has unique elements that I believe will be informative and relatable to writers and readers. Over the next several months, I’ll post a bimonthly account of my journey to publication—from the 1970s when I was a young man with big dreams to a recently retired dude who hasn’t given up on those dreams quite yet. Here is part 12.

Striving to remain viable as a novelist

As mentioned in previous episodes, I sold a home that gave me enough resources to take a three-year break (2004-2007) from the rat race. During that time away from work, I wrote a six-book epic fantasy series totaling about 750,000 words. But after the sabbatical, my funds ran dry. Sadly but also realistically, it was time for me to get a new day job.

I accepted a position at a sizable newspaper that was about a 30-minute drive from my home. My new title was Multimedia Editor, which meant I was in charge of the photographers, artists, and online editors. The job was interesting and challenging, but the challenging part quickly became too challenging. I found myself working as many as 55 hours each week, including nights, weekends, and on my days off. Whatever pool of creative energy I had stored in my brain each morning when I woke up was drained dry by the end of the day.

I worked at this job from 2008-2011 and somehow managed to write one new novel during that stretch. To me, this was rather impressive, considering I was also collaborating with a midsized publisher to produce my already-written epic fantasy series.

The new novel was a sexually explicit ghost story about a man purchasing a house in the middle of a forest that turned out to be, you guessed it, haunted. I named the novel Dream House: A Ghost Story, and it was traditionally published by a (very) small house. By coincidence, a horror movie starring Daniel Craig called Dream House came out about a month after my novel debuted. And suddenly, Dream House: A Ghost Story began to sell pretty well. Was it because of the movie? Maybe. Probably. But if readers bought my novel expecting it to be the inspiration for the Craig movie, they must have been pretty confused. Anyway, I wasn’t about to complain. I didn’t copy the title on purpose, so why not reap the benefits? (Eventually, the small publishing house went out of business, and my version of Dream House is no longer in print. I’ll probably self-publish a revised version of it somewhere down the road, but it’s a low-priority project for me right now.)

In 2011, the economy was still recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, and the publishing industry as a whole had been hit especially hard. Newspapers were laying people off left and right. For the first time in my life, I became one of the victims. The paper laid me off with just three weeks of severance, and I was cast into a job market that was anything but favorable. It took me more than a year to find a new job, this time at a large newspaper that was a two-and-a-half-hour drive (mostly on an insanely dangerous interstate) from my house. This was too far to drive every day, of course, so I was forced to rent a room and live away from home during the work week and return home on weekends.

However, this depressing situation had one advantage. Since I was there by myself with nothing to do except show up for work, my off-hours were all my own. I exercised a lot and familiarized myself with a bunch of local restaurants, and in the late evenings after work, I began to write again—a little. From mid-2012 until late 2014, I sat alone in my tiny room and wrote one more novel, which turned out to be book 1 of a teen fantasy adventure series. It was my first go at fiction that wasn’t intended for an adult audience, and I found it to be a suprisingly pleasant experience to write it. I guess after all the sex stuff, I needed to go PG for a spell.

The publsher of my epic fantasy series wasn’t interested in teen novels, so they turned me down. I queried agents and other publishers and got the usual slew of pat-on-the-back rejections. Finally, I gave up and put it away for future use. Stephen King likes to call this a “trunk novel.” It’s kind of fun to have one. Most people don’t have any novels, much less a spare one just lying around.

Meanwhile, something wonderful happened to me that was unrelated to writing novels. I scored a dream job as a communications director at a major university only a ten-minute drive from my house.

After almost three years of driving back and forth and barely avoiding several potentially nasty car accidents, I was headed home for good. It was a sweet feeling, to say the least.

Up next: Another dreaded dryspell.

Previous episodes

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11