Brick Walls
I'm going to paraphrase Randy Pausch, the late author of "The Last Lecture," who wrote that brick walls were not put in our way in order to stop us. They are put in our paths so that we can prove how badly we want something. The brick walls are to stop other people, those who don't want it as much as we do.
The recession has hit the publishing world much like it has hit everything else. Although people have not stopped reading, the ways they are reading has been affected. Smaller publishers have gone under, digital publishing is on the rise and long established authors are losing their publishing contracts. All-in-all, it is not the most favorable time to be getting into the book game as an unknown, particularly if I am writing a book that doesn't have HOME RUN written all over it.
In my last post, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was floundering around in what is wrong with my book. Not that there isn't plenty of room for improvement (there's always places to do better, and I hope to never stop learning), but by and large, I think the issue is timing and the fact that I am not trying to sell an obvious bestseller. In answer to some of the comments about showing the manuscript to published authors, etc., have done and also have more lined up to take a gander.
What strikes me as interesting about the rejections is that one person said to me that I should change the focus from a growth and redemption story to more of a mystery (er, no), another said alcoholism wasn't going to sell in today's market (um, to who? the actively alcoholic publishers who aren't keen on abstaining in an economic downturn?). Another said that this sort of story was absolutely saleable in this sort of market, she just didn't connect to the actual execution of my novel the way she thought she should (no snappy comeback... just *ouch*).
In other words, opinions are like....
Personally, I think this story, which is fiction rather than memoir, has a bigger market than most of the publishing world realizes. How compelling I've made the story is another question, but I think I've done a decent job. But I also believe that until I became part of the recovery community, I had no concept of how immense it is or how hungry I was for more information and relatable characters until I was there. Unless I am tapping into the right people, these agents I have been contacting might not understand that there are many of us out there looking for this sort of story.
Of course, I could be wrong.
To quote from literary agent Barbara Poelle's blog post on the state of the industry (and I have not queried her, in case you're wondering, and therefore is not guilty of any of the beforementioned rejections):
"No, really. Why am I eating my feelings and crying? Well, because last week, a colleague of mine was going out with a brilliant manuscript and was told by an editor, 'The writing is amazing, but amazing writing isn’t enough.'
AMAZING. WRITING. ISN’T. ENOUGH."
My mission is to figure out what sort of pretzel I need to twist myself into to make this process work for me. But one solution is not making this first novel into a friggin mystery. The fact is, this book is the only full-out recovery story I am likely to write. My other books have been suspense novels, and while I'm sure recovery will make cameos in one way or another in my books, this current manuscript is the book of my heart. I have other stories in me. If great writing isn't all that it takes to succeed, I damn well will figure out what else I need to do.
What it all comes down to is timing and whether I am ready to persist. That brick wall is not for me.
