Why I Didn't Quit After I Lost My First Book Deal

Nevertheless, she persisted-and persisted and persisted.

Here’s something I haven’t told too many people: I’ve sold two books to Big 5 publishers, but only one was published.

I spent years writing my first memoir, Free Fall, only to have the book deal pulled out from under me. Yes, the contract was signed. Yes, I’d already received the first installment of my advance. Yes, I’d written most of the book. Yes, I believed I’d never sell or publish another book again.

Yes, I crawled up into a ball on my bed and never wanted to get up.

Left: The first memoir I wrote, Free Fall. Right: Me reading from Free Fall in 2018

If you want to hear more about the story of losing my first book deal listen to my episode with Bethany and Fran from BOOKS WITH BETHANY + FRAN and Bookbound Podcast.

When I lost my book deal all I knew is that I didn’t want to ever write again. I felt let down by the world. I believed my career was over when it was supposed to have just begun. But then I asked myself: what good would it do to quit now?

If I never wrote again, where would it get me? I’d become the person who always wished she was an author–who had gotten so, so close–only to see her dream disappear right from under her.

So after the tears and the rage and the what-do-I-do-nows? I decided to keep writing.

I wrote a fourth version of the Modern Love essay that I always kept on my desktop and this time I heard from Dan Jones that they wanted to publish it.

You might think: oh well, she got a Modern Love essay published. Her writing career was saved.

But you’d be wrong.

No publishers were beating down my door waiting for my next book. No one was wondering what I’d write next. In fact, my life changed very little.

I already had an agent who sold my first book and she stood by me even after the debacle of the lost book deal. So, that was a win. But when I told her that I wanted to expand my Modern Love essay into a book she didn’t think it would be a slam dunk. She actually spoke to two editors who told her that “motherhood” and “fertility” books didn’t sell. Even though I didn’t consider my memoir a motherhood or a fertility book, that's what “the marketplace” saw it as.

So, my agent and I agreed that I’d have to write my proposal to show editors my vision. I spent three+ years working on that book proposal. Three years AFTER my Modern Love essay was published I finally had a PROPOSAL. Not even a manuscript. I knew what my book idea was and it still took me that long to articulate it succinctly.

Then after those three years my agent sent my proposal out to 37 editors and 35 of them rejected it. Thirty-five rejections that each left a tiny nick in my heart that felt like it would never stop bleeding.

THEN FINALLY!

But like my therapist always told me about dating: it only takes one. And after all of those hell nos I finally heard a hell yes from my editor Jamia Wilson at Random House.

So, yes, my story has a happy ending, but I didn’t know it would–and every step of the way I considered quitting.

Because there’s no one to tell you if you’re on the “right” path. There’s no one to tell you whether your vision for your book is the right one. There’s no one to tell you whether you’re wasting your one wild and precious life on something that will never see the light of the day.

You have to have faith, and wow, that’s not easy. It’s much easier to quit. It’s much easier to lament all the ways it didn’t work out. But is it? Because if I gave up I would have always wondered. It would have eaten away at me. And I feared my proverbial death bed where I’d look back on my life and regret not having gone for it.

If I wouldn’t have kept writing, I wouldn’t have published The Mother Code today.

So, I went for it. And here I am telling you that you should go for it too. Despite the fact that the market is tough and you don’t have a platform and you have no idea what you’re doing and no one will care about your story and and and…there’s a million reasons to not do something. But what if the only reason that matters is that you want to?

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If you are looking for customized 1:1 coaching to get your book finally written, reply back to this email or reach out at ruackerman@gmail.com to schedule a discovery call and learn more about my 1:1 single strategy sessions and on-going support.

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