I REALLY Didn’t Think I Could Sell My Book
Some words on pushing through self-doubt.
As a writer, every step of the way is paved in self-doubt. When you first start a project you have to believe that it’s worthy deep down inside of you without any promise that you’ll ever receive any recognition for it or that anyone will ever read it. Even when you have a big win – an essay of yours gets published! Someone reaches out and says you changed their life with your words! – that excitement only lasts so long. Then it’s back to the blank page.
At every stage you convince yourself: as soon as I get published in [fill in the blank] outlet, as soon as I get an agent, as soon as I sell my book *then* I’ll feel validated. But I’m here to tell you that as soon as you get whatever stamp of approval you think you’re searching for, the self-doubt will creep in once again.
I’m not immune either. When I first started talking about my memoir and I was in that fragile stage when it was just a seed of an idea, I was told “fertility books” don’t sell. “But it’s not a fertility book,” I’d say. Then it was pegged as a “motherhood book” and apparently those don’t sell either (though I can name five “motherhood books" off the top of my head that are coming out this spring alone). “But it’s not a motherhood book,” I’d cry. Sure, there are themes around fertility and motherhood in my memoir, but that’s not what my book is *about*.
My book is about a young woman who is lost in the noise of everything that society desires for her and she can no longer hear her own voice.
My book is about why we don’t have enough models for what a “good life” can look like for a woman outside of marriage and motherhood.
My book is about LIFE and along the way fertility and motherhood and love and divorce and mental health and genetic inheritance and the (im)possibilities of self-actualization haunt the narrative. I say “haunt” because I took a writing class with Carmen Maria Machado and she said, “Every story is a ghost story,” and I couldn’t agree more. My book certainly is.
All of this is to say that after the 2024 presidential election my memoir haunted me in a totally different way. Suddenly, my inner critic whispered at all hours of the day: Does this even matter? Who cares? Why would anyone want to read about your puny life when [fill in a catastrophic world event here] is happening all around us? Even though I have an agent I adore and an amazing editor and a book deal and all the recognition that I thought would dispel all of my self-doubt for the rest of my life, none of that mattered in that moment. I still heard the metaphorical voice in my head shout, “Why bother?”
I’m here to tell you that you should “bother.” That people do care. That stories do matter. That sharing our voices, especially in times of pain and disempowerment, is a radical act. That’s why I do what I do. I truly believe that the only way to keep putting one foot in front of the other is through storytelling.
Here’s something I call the “deathbed test”:
Sit somewhere quiet.
Put your feet on the floor.
Roll your neck a few times. Left. Then right.
Now imagine that you are lying on your deathbed. The good news is that your imaginary deathbed can be anywhere you want (Italy? France? Majorca?) – and look any way you want (mine has Frette sheets, for example).
Now ask yourself: What will matter once I face the end of my life? That promotion I scrambled for? That pair of boots I bought? That week I worked 60 hours? Or that book I always wanted to write?
Whether or not that book ever gets published is beside the point. You wanted to write a book and you did. You had something to say and your book is now a legacy for your children and grandchildren and so on. I only wish my mother or grandmother or great-grandmother for that matter would have written a book. How different my life might have turned out.
Often we jump ahead a million steps. My students often ask: Who will be mad at me if I write this book? Will I get a book deal? Will I get an agent? Will people laugh at me? And I don’t have the answer to any of those questions, but I always say the same thing: keep writing anyway. You will write your way into the answer.
In community,
Ruthie
Apply for my 2025 Book Incubator kicking off in January! More details here. Application here.
Join me and my brilliant neighbor, Samantha Dion Baker, for a free workshop Tuesday, December 3. “Draw Your World” will take place on Zoom and all are welcome. Register here.
