Happily Every After, or What Happens Once a Book Comes Out

Welcome once more to Jenny Milchman!

Since I put bread on the table much of my adult life teaching and counseling gifted college-bound students, I take more than usual interest in the career of a younger gifted American author like Jenny Milchman.

In her post today Jenny shows a strong sense of direction for her life as a fiction writer, combined with humility, grit and undiluted courage!

It is my hope that her personal revelations will give strength and courage to other writers -of whatever age - pushing steadfastly through the intricate mazes on the arduous path to acceptance, publication and the rewards of being recognized as a real pro!

Thelma Jacqueline Straw

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Thelma asked me to write a blog post about “how all this success and fame is affecting me” and I read her instructions and thought, Who is she talking about?

I should back up and tell you a little bit about myself (although really, I’m so famous that surely seeing my name should be enough). Ha. Not.

It took me thirteen years to get my debut novel published. Thirteen years of shuns, as in rejection, humiliation, and degradation. Of pulling myself up afterwards, slapping myself around a little, and saying, “Get out there and do it again.”

Unfortunately the ‘again’ part kept happening. Over a period of eleven years, I wrote eight novels, worked with three agents who submitted five of them, and together we amassed fifteen almost-offers from editors who were interested, but couldn’t get a deal okayed. I lived on the cusp of almost for more than a decade.

Finally the literary sea parted, and I was offered a contract for novel #8. Exactly how is a story that’s been told in other posts and articles. What I’d like to talk about now—the part Thelma was asking about—is what happened next.

What happened first-next is that I learned that rejection doesn’t stop just because you land a publishing deal. My debut hadn’t even come out when my agent told me that novels #7 and #9, both of which we’d submitted to my publisher as a follow-up, weren’t quite right. The novel that would come out after my debut turned out to be my tenth.

But Thelma is right that some magical things did begin, and in many ways, landing that publishing deal changed my life and allowed me to do things I’d dreamed of for decades.

Find readers. See someone, then many someones pick my book up off a bookstore shelf. Walk into the crowded event space of a bookstore or a library and get to speak.

Hmmm, funny what a writer’s dreams consist of, isn’t it? It isn’t buying the yacht—or even being met by a handler at the airport on book tour (neither of which has happened to me yet). But getting to share your story, closing the circle Stephen King describes between author and reader? I’ll take that over ten private jets.

But I keep circling back to Thelma’s initial prompt, and I don’t want to be disingenuous about it. It’s true that my debut novel met with some success. It won an award I will always keep in the annals of memory as my “Oscar moment” and has been nominated for two others. When I was given the Mary Higgins Clark award—by Mary Higgins Clark herself—my editor and my husband had to push me up to the stage. My name had been read, but I hadn’t quite registered it.

And thanks to rigorous research by my publisher as to how best to put digital pricing to use, the same book landed, briefly and low down, on the USA Today bestseller list. I got to see my name praised by the New York Times, and better than that—my story. People and places that wouldn’t have existed if I hadn’t made them up.

Remember, this was a novel that had been rejected by everyone. By 2010, when my agent and I were out of options, we had received two final rejections. The first said—

• “Love the array of characters, but the plot moves too slowly.”

While the other went—

• “The plot goes like quicksilver, but we’d have to cut some of these characters.”

What’s a writer to do, with no plot and no characters? We decided to do neither, and then came our eleventh hour reprieve, leading me to believe that if a writer wants to succeed, knock on every door, and then start knocking on things that aren’t doors.

And afterwards, along with the success? A lot of ongoing doubt. Some people liked my first book, but trust me, plenty of people didn’t (just read my reader reviews). I would be lucky enough to see a second novel come out a year later, but that brought with it a whole other set of fears. What if those who liked my first book hated this new one, and those who hated the first hated this one even worse?

Does it ever stop, this writer’s quandary, a primordial soup of second-guessing and undermining yourself? I’d like to ask Stephen King that. Or Kathryn Stockett. You know…the truly famous and successful ones.

I wonder how they see themselves?

There are other doubts besides writerly ones. Every night I wrestle with what kind of lesson my career is offering my kids. Part of the reason I stuck it out as long as I did was because I didn’t want this story to end for my kids on a note of rejection. What kind of Cinderella tale is that? But now the kids are a part of my journey in ways most children aren’t privy to a parent’s career. Is this a good thing—a study in hard work and how there’s always something to reach for? Or should I be leaving my children to school and Scouts and soccer, and shielding them from the realities of a career in media and the arts?

Here’s the thing. As any real writer knows—from Stephen King to the newest newbie on the block—it’s the next book that counts. The one we’re dreaming up in our heads. The one we’ll turn our attention to the moment it’s ready. And nobody, not Stephen or Gillian or JK, knows what their readers will think of that one.

The doubts don’t end, but luckily something else stays constant, too. The readers. The ones whose distant promise kept me in the game for thirteen years. If we keep writing for them, then any success and fame may seem ephemeral and fleeting, but that’s okay.

Coming back to a new story will keep our doubts at bay, too.

© 2014 Jenny Milchman

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Jenny Milchman’s debut novel, Cover of Snow, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick, won the Mary Higgins Clark award for best suspense novel of 2013, and has been nominated for a Barry and Macavity. Jenny’s second novel, Ruin Falls, also an Indie Next Pick, has just come out to starred reviews, and her third, As Night Falls, will be released in 2015. Jenny is now dreaming up the next one.

Find Jenny online at http://jennymilchman.com/jenny/

On The Road Again

I met Jenny last year at the Book House, Albany's great independent bookstore when she was promoting her first novel, Cover of Snow, in the company of a bunch of mystery authors doing the same. I had no inkling that when she left the store, she, her husband and two children were getting in their SUV and heading West on her self-plotted and self-financed National Book Tour. On this April 26th, Jenny was back at the Book House solo to read from her second suspense thriller, Ruin Falls, now a member of Sisters In Crime/Upstate Chapter, having relocated with her family from New Jersey to Phoenicia, NY. Afterward, they all piled into their SUV again and headed out for Seattle on the Milchman National Book Tour, with her publisher Random House's blessings.

Robert Knightly

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Last year when my debut novel came out, my husband and I did the only logical thing. We rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, and withdrew the kids from first and third grades in order to car-school them.

OK, maybe it wasn’t all that logical.

But when you finally get published, after a thirteen year journey/struggle/battle, and you know that the only thing harder than breaking in is building a lasting career as an author, then you might just figure that you have to give this thing your all.

And given a certain amount of flexibility—i.e., your husband works in IT and is the most supportive guy in the world, and your children are still young enough to find it cool to spend 24/7 with their parents—you might also figure that grassroots efforts have helped launch businesses for ages, and why not get out there, introducing yourself and your work, one bookstore, one library, one reader at a time?

There was an event I did in Goshen, Indiana when exactly one person showed up. And he didn’t buy a copy of my book—something that always makes me upset for the bookseller who is going to all the trouble of hosting an event. But it turned out okay. The attendee bought a novel by a different author, which I recommended. And he told me that he wasn’t buying my book because he’d already read it, which was what led him to drive three hours to meet me in Goshen.

That evening became what I call a moment of the heart.

Did it make economical cents to drive to Goshen? Of course not. But it made a different kind of sense. The kind that says we write books because we want to connect with people. Getting to meet them face-to-face is a privilege and an honor.

Of course we also meet people in other ways these days. Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn have expanded my world in ways I couldn’t have envisioned. Especially not back when I began trying to get published…and there wasn’t any such thing as Facebook.

It was queries on cotton resume paper and ream boxes for mailing manuscripts. Last month I gave a talk at a college and when I used the phrase ream box I was met with blank faces.

I’ve aged out of something, I guess. But I also wonder if a new age might be coming.

An awareness that we all hurry too fast and try to do too much at one time. There’s slow food now, and maybe there should be slow reading. Slow book tours anyway. Something is lost when we cease investing in the moment and the development of relationships. Lost in our connections, and maybe lost in our writing, too.

I don’t want to be too blithe about any of this. There are only so many hours in a day, and writers are tasked with doing so much now that it can be impossible to keep up. Not everyone—not anyone really—can take seven months out of their lives to try to start a career.

But you don’t have to. In fact, I think seven days of this approach can add a dimension to your career, and even your life.

The first question I am usually asked when I speak about “the world’s longest book tour” is whether it was worth it. I answer that it depends on what worth it means. Judging a book tour by book sales makes little sense. By the time you’ve paid for gas, accommodations in some cases, and a bite to eat, you’d be hard-pressed to sell enough books to recoup expenses.

I could point again to the moment of the heart, but there’s another more tangible gain, which I call the ripple effect. What if I meet a bookseller who continues to hand-sell my books for months after I am there? What if there’s an attendee who doesn’t read what I write, but has a friend who does? Or one who’s a columnist for a major newspaper? What if a book club shows up just for fun? All of these things and more happened while I was out on the road.

As writers we are casting the stones of our stories into a massive sea. The more ripples we can get started, the bigger our chances for success.

My debut novel landed on multiple regional bestseller lists, and exceeded publisher expectations in other ways. When my second novel came out, my publisher decided to set up the first leg of the tour. That’s right—I’m now doing it all over again.

This time a fellow author decided to come along for the first 1000 miles of the ride, in the backseat with the kids sleeping against her. If Bob Knightly is kind enough to have me back to the blog, I will describe just what that was like.

Is all of this worth it? Please continue to follow along. Let me know what you think.

Jenny Milchman

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Jenny Milchman is a suspense novelist from New York State. Her debut novel, Cover of Snow, published by Ballantine in 2013, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Emerging Authors Pick, won the Mary Higgins Clark award and has been nominated for a Barry. Her second novel, Ruin Falls, came out in April.