I rang in 2010 giving thanks for so many blessings… my son had found a home and had decided to go back to school, at the age of thirty. Four days prior to Christmas 2009, my husband had survived, without injury, a six-car Interstate pile-up and had come home safely. My first book was finished, and I was searching for an agent in an effort to get it published. I had a home and a life which most would have found enviable.
Much can change, in a year’s time. In March of 2010, I opted to sign a contract with a publisher, bypassing the need for an agent. All I needed, I thought, was for the publisher to print the book. My husband and I could handle the marketing of it.
I had thoroughly read the publisher’s contract. In retrospect, I wish I had sought a second opinion before signing it, but I had written something I was happy with, and I was anxious to get it “out there.” The contract stated that they would make no changes to the text without my approval, and I took comfort in that. I wanted it to be “all mine.”
I wish I had known that what it really meant was that they would not even provide copy-editing. After I’d signed the contract, then submitted the manuscript, they “formatted” it and sent it back to me for approval, giving me a mere 48 hours to make any changes necessary and even then, giving me “a maximum of two pages” of corrections. I wasn’t even sure what that meant. Did it mean that I could only correct two pages of the 286? Did it mean that I could add no more than two pages, or delete no more than that? What about punctuation?
I tried to contact them, immediately to find that out, but they did not return either my emails or my phone calls. I set to work, meanwhile, re-reading the entire manuscript and trying to maintain a clear head under the pressure of the deadline. After all, they told me that if I did not re-submit it within 48 hours, they would send it to print as it was, and I’d found numerous errors by the time I’d finished the second chapter.
At the end of the forty-eight hour period, I reluctantly submitted the manuscript, knowing that there were commas which did not belong, empty lines in the middle of a page where they did not belong, and in two or three cases, fragments of sentences in the middle of a paragraph which made absolutely no sense.
For a few weeks, I was then in a state of panic, hoping I’d caught at least the worst of the mistakes, and that I could live with the remainder. Then, one day a package arrived at my door, and I found inside one seemingly perfect copy of the book I had worked so hard on; the memoir I had lived and then written. The cover was somewhat daunting; there was my name (the name of a “nobody”) in font just as large as the font of the title. I thought it made me look egotistical. Otherwise, I liked the cover, and couldn’t wait to open it and read it.
I couldn’t help noticing that the pages felt different from every book I’d ever read; it was as if they “fit” my fingertips better. I read a few pages of it, discovering that there were still an abundance of misplaced commas, and a few poorly worded sentences.
I allowed myself the pleasure of feeling pride, of enjoying a sense of accomplishment, despite the errors. I even let a couple of well-meaning friends tell me that I was only being “picky” about it because I was such a perfectionist regarding my own work; that others would likely not even notice the errors.
I am not a person who wants to sign her name to something done halfway, though. When the publisher told me they had set the price of the book at $32.95, I was mortified. Not only did it have my name in giant font, but it was less than three-hundred pages and more than thirty dollars, full of errors and in some places, poorly written.
As I began trying to market the book, I realized that it was nearly impossible to do so. The “press release” which the publisher “prepared” was nothing more than the words I’d written for the back cover, along with a short promo for them, the publisher.
Critics didn’t want to read it. Booksellers didn’t want to buy it, because the publisher had priced it so high and also because they would be unable to return the book to the publisher if it did not sell.
And every day, I got a new “offer” from the publisher. It became clear fairly quickly that they did not care about the poor quality of the book because I was their only marketing target. In order to keep my own hopes and dreams alive, I would have to buy the book myself (at the “author discount” they offer, which changes daily, dependent on their creative offers… and then re-sell it to whomever I could. I would either have to sell it for almost what their “retail” price is, or just give it away. I’m not rich enough to buy books just to give them away, and even if I was, I don’t know that many people.
So I found myself in a bit of a quandary, frustrated anew each day when the “offer” from the publisher arrived in my inbox. Many come with a “promise.” Four instance, if I buy a minimum of four books at a forty percent discount, they will give my book “priority” treatment with one bookstore or another, or they will have an e-book produced (with a mechanical-sounding computerized voice and no human emotion.)
Today, it is available to me for a mere $8.88, no minimum order. Of course, they add $4 per book for shipping, and then if I want to re-sell, I have to add shipping… to make any profit, I’d have to charge at least $19 for my book, when I can go buy “Eat Pray Love” off the shelf for under $12. That doesn’t make much sense. And most days, it isn’t offered as low as $8.88. Though the publisher did reduce their selling price to $27.99, it is still at least twice what the book is worth, and I’m an unknown author. Who would buy it?
I have been battling mixed feelings about this for three months now. My pride and sense of accomplishment turned to embarrassment over a shoddy product. I tried to keep marketing the book, but my heart just isn’t in it any more. Over the past few weeks, I have realized that there is a big lesson to be learned in all of this, and it’s time for me to take it to heart. The “story” may be beautiful and powerful, but the book is not what I wanted it to be, and it’s not going to sell. And maybe, just maybe that’s how it is supposed to play out.
That’s a tough lesson, but having learned it, I move on from here. The blessings I count may be different this January, but as I look forward to the coming year, I believe that they are just as ample. After all, I know I won’t repeat my mistakes with the next book. No shortcuts, no embarrassment.
And who knows what blessings I may be counting, a year from today?
