Path to Publishing: Rebuilding that Brick Wall into a Brick Path

This month, I found out the manuscript I have been writing for three years was rejected not by one publisher, but by eight publishing houses. It was, to say the least, a huge disappointment. 

The news came from my agent who might have been more devastated by the rejections than I was. Throughout the summer, she had guided me to rewrite my newest book into a narrative nonfiction form that we both believed would have the hook publishers needed to say yes. When we began working together, I truly believed I had finally found the secret door through the very thick and tall brick wall that surrounds the publishing world.

If you have tried to scale that wall yourself, you know what I am talking about. When I was writing my first book, The Hundred Story Home, I thought the hardest part would be the actual writing process. It took six years, thirteen drafts, six beta-readers, and extensive editing to finally produce a version that I thought was “the one.” After that long road of writing, I discovered the publishing route is even more difficult. With traditional publishers, you can’t expect to be offered a book deal on the sheer strength of your writing. You need to also write a query letter that will capture an agent’s attention who will then submit your manuscript on your behalf or write a compelling nonfiction book proposal that is its own type of thesis project. In your proposal (as well as to get an agent), you will need to prove that while writing your book, you also built “a platform” meaning a guaranteed avenue for sales of your book generally defined as 10,000 Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram followers or maybe be the lead pastor at a mega-church. 

Depressed yet? Want to quit? I almost did. In 2015, I couldn’t find an agent and it seemed I couldn’t find a way through that brick wall. Dejected, I put my carefully crafted manuscript away deciding it was just too hard to publish. My day job was working in the nonprofit world which had its own challenges so why was I throwing myself against this impenetrable publishing wall? 

But my book idea would not stay quietly in its place. It kept whispering to me which was maddening because that was the title of the last chapter in my manuscript I was trying to publish: “Trust the Whisper.” In the chapter, I had written that when that little voice keeps quietly, insistently, persistently calling to us, we only have two choices—listen or pretend we never heard it. 

I knew I heard it. I knew I had a whisper quietly, insistently telling me I needed to put my story in the world. But I could not figure out why until my friend sent me this poem by Sean Thomas Dougherty:

Why Bother?

Because right now, there is

someone

out there with

a wound

in the exact shape

of your words.

That was what I needed to read in order to listen. Sean Thomas Dougherty was right. There had to be at someone, maybe even ten people with a wound in the shape of my words. My goal would be to get this book into the world so they could read it. 

For the next year and a half, I held onto that idea, finding the “ten people who needed to read it” while I navigated the self-publishing world to print my own copies of my first book. Brick by brick, I disassembled the wall in front of me and remade it into a different path to publishing. At nights and on weekends, I studied cover design, interior book design, spine widths, ISBN numbers, and the difference between indie and hybrid publishers. I hired and worked with my own proofreaders and editors to be sure the book I created would not be full of typos thus easily dismissed as a hobby project. When I held that first copy with its soft matte finish, it was like my fifth child delivered as full of love as each of my four daughters.

It would take more nights and weekends to understand how to actually sell a book. This time, I studied how to build an author website, begrudgingly started social media accounts, overcame a fear of speaking to present to book clubs and church Sunday school classes. Eventually, I found those ten readers who needed to read it—strangers who became friends when their emails let me know how much my words mattered. Over the next year, I sold over 7,000 copies of a book that publishers did not want by selling through Amazon, my local independent bookstore, and boxes in my garage. My self-published book finally attracted enough readers that I did land that elusive book deal with the very same publisher that rejected my book three years earlier. It seemed I had finally figured out a way to scale that brick wall to a “real” publisher and a new edition released in 2018 which still sells today.

I tell you this not because I want you to find my persistence impressive but because I want you to believe you can do it, too. If there is a book right now waiting and whispering inside you—listen. Sit down and begin writing. Fully understand that it will not be easy. There will be hurdles and you will want to quit. But remember, there are good people waiting with the wounds in the exact shape of your words. 

What will I do with the eight rejections piled on top of my new manuscript that was so hopefully waiting to be born? I will begin once again rebuilding the brick wall into my own brick path to publishing. This time, it won’t be as difficult. The trail I made last time is still solid and easy to follow. I know how to navigate the indie world and I might experiment in the hybrid-publishing world.

I invite you to follow along as I try to get these new words into the world. Each month in collaboration with Writing for Your Life, I will be posting an article telling you how it is going. You can also signup to take a monthly workshop Path to Publishing on this website (check the Event Calendar for the date) and I will show you what worked, what didn’t work, and any shortcuts I find along the way. I want to make all our paths easier so that we can all find the wounds we were meant to heal.

Sign up for the December Path to Publishing Workshop here or the January session here!