Long Day’s Journey into Print: Getting The Best Year Ever Published
It’s been said that everyone has a book in them, and while that sounds more like a problem that should be addressed at the nearest ER, it was true of me. I didn’t actually set out to write a book about my adventures in 2008 and 2009; my goal was more to write a fun journal that my family could enjoy one day. “Look,” my children would say when I was 80, wearing my pants just below my armpits, and insisting that they really had to listen to Weezer’s music to appreciate it, “Dad used to be interesting, have friends, and have hair!”
But then I got the idea that maybe I should publish the account as a book (because training for and running the Chicago Marathon wasn’t torture enough). I did my research, learned about the literary agents who handle books in my genre, sent them concise, professional query letters…and got crickets in return.
Not even form letter rejections. Silence.
Well, I thought, maybe contacting agents cold isn’t the way. I need a connection. So I talked to authors whom I knew had agent representation and asked them, Oliver Twist-like, “Please, sir? Can you email your agent?” The response, unfortunately, was more like Fagin’s: maybe not outrage but certainly a kind of “I paid my dues” hauteur. Most published authors were more hostile than helpful and wouldn’t even give me tips on what to do next.
By this point, I was almost desperate for someone to read a chapter of The Best Year Ever and tell me if I was on the right track. I didn’t think I’d written something that would win a Pulitzer; to paraphrase “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek, I’m a CFO, not an author. I didn’t take it personally. But like anyone, I craved some feedback. I was ready to pay an agent for it until I found out that’s a huge taboo in the industry.
I had come face-to-face with the catch-22 of the book business: you can’t get a traditional book deal if you’ve never published a book, but how do you publish a book if you can’t get a publisher? Clearly, I was going to have to go about this in a nontraditional way. But how?
My wife got me past the roadblock. She was watching a talk show where Oprah was talking with Jack Canfield, who co-created the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He was talking about how he and his partner, Mark Victor Hansen, couldn’t get the time of day for their book, so they went to Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in the country, and personally shopped the project to more than 130 publishers until they found one, Health Communications, Inc., that believed in it.
She looked it up and discovered that BEA was being held in Chicago (where I live) in three months. It was a sign from God – I should go to BEA and pitch The Best Year Ever until someone read my book or asked security to escort me out. Or both. I registered as an author, my wife registered as the CEO of the very fictional company Best Year Ever LLC, we got a list of publishers who seemed to specialize in memoirs and non-fiction, and we went door-to-door…or booth-to-booth, as it were.
If you or someone you know is due for a humility booster shot, I highly recommend walking around BEA as an unknown, first-time author pitching a book (BEA isn’t even intended as an event to find new authors). Reps from several big publishers literally laughed in my face. But in the end, I found my publisher, finished my book, and here we are.
What did I learn from the experience? A few things:
- Publishing is a bare-knuckle business, not a self-esteem club for writers.
- You have to keep pushing, be creative, and refuse to quit. Don’t be shy; no one will market you except you.
- Always look for people who are professional but skeptical and don’t tell you what you want to hear.
- In the end, work with good people with good values. Let the money take care of itself.
That’s good advice for any business.
