Originally published in September of 2021.
In professional, and I suppose also personal news, I WROTE A BOOK.
A Single Revolution: Don’t look for a match. Light one.
I envisioned that announcing it here on Medium would involve something a bit more formal and befitting the thing I just accomplished, but I had to evacuate my new home in New Orleans, Louisiana 11 days ago and have been displaced ever since so right now I’m just grateful for an internet connection that allows me to share the news at all. It’s a big deal, it publishes in October. Let’s discuss.
My book is a guide for single women who are tired of feeling frustrated, exhausted, less-than, sad, angry, helpless, and all other unsavory emotions we’ve been taught to believe are the only ones available to single women. It challenges every negative, outdated, false narrative around being single and replaces them with the fucking truth. We are whole, we are valid, we aren’t unfinished, and we are free. We’ve got more endless possibility staring us in the face than people in couples but we’re too head-down in a dating app to notice. It’s 17 chapters of reframing that I hope actually make single women feel good. Because I haven’t seen anything written for us other than books telling us how to date better and I believe we deserve a hell of a lot more than that.
I didn’t get a book deal. There was no cute little red and blue Tweet or Instagram post with the official notice of a publisher’s acquisition of my proposal and a publish date two years in the goddamned future. I self-published this book via a company called Scribe that took care of all the heavy lifting for me so that I could focus on writing something great. I wrote my book in April, edited it in May and June, moved across the country in July, and fled a hurricane in August. This process has been very difficult and very secret, and I am extremely proud of myself. Self-publishing means that instead of a publisher paying me a sexy advance to write a book, I paid someone else (quite handsomely) to take the manuscript I wrote and turn it into something you can buy on Amazon.
You might be wondering why I went this route, as it’s historically been seen as less than “real” by those in the writing and publishing world. After writing and editing 70,000 words in about three months, I can assure you that this shit is real to me. I recognize however that self-publishing is a misunderstood space, and I thought I might shine a bit of light on why I did this.
To be clear, you can self-publish a book if you want to and that doesn’t make you lower in status or value than any author who got a book deal. The physical book itself isn’t lower in quality than something Simon & Schuster blessed with holy water, it’s the exact same thing you order online and hope no one steals off your porch two days later. The quality of the writing isn’t lower either, because I’m fucking great at what I do. If that sounds arrogant, just imagine I’m a man, and that will dissipate quickly.
There are however some key differences between publishing with a publisher via a book deal and deciding to DIY that pushed me over the mental hill I had to climb to get out of my ego and into claiming the future I’ve always known was mine. They are as follows:
1 — No More Waiting For My Life To Start.
Three years ago, my agent and I started trying to sell my book proposal to publishers. Over and over again, I received dozens of the same canned excuses for why I was getting rejected. My following wasn’t big enough (but somehow writers with smaller followings got deals?), they don’t see a market for my work (but thousands of people listen to my podcast and read my writing on Medium), etc. etc. Always with “but you’re such a great writer” thrown in for good manners. Yes, Stacy, I am great writer. And I’m going to be a great author without any involvement from you because you don’t think I’m going to make you enough money. That’s the only real reason I didn’t get a book deal, if you’re curious. The book world isn’t about writing ability or great ideas. It’s about money and celebrity more often than not. How famous are you, and how much money can you make for a publisher? Not for yourself, mind you, for a publisher. Look, I’m not much for revenge…but I really hope I get to shove a stick the shape of a giant dollar sign in several people’s eyes, real soon.
My life was on hold. The future I dreamt of for myself was on hold. I lived in a perpetual state of waiting for someone else’s approval, validation, and blessing. Eventually I started asking myself what the fuck I was waiting for, and exactly how long I was willing to wait. Let’s thank 2020 for draining my patience like spent bathwater. No more waiting for someone else to tell me I’m good enough to publish a book, especially when I’m resourceful enough to find ways to cut those who doubt me out of the equation. I decide who and what I am, and what I do for a living. I’ve wanted to be an author my entire life. I don’t give a shit if every publishing house in New York agrees or not, because I no longer need them to.
I am finished with waiting to be chosen. I chose myself, I invested in myself, and now I am what I’ve always wanted to be.
2 — I Retain The Rights, I Make The Money.
Self published authors make more dollars per sale than authors who published via publisher, because there’s no publisher around to take their cut. We keep more of our own money, essentially. In addition, authors who published via publisher do not make any money on their books at all until their earnings from book sales pay back the publisher for that glossy advance they got. If they never sell enough books to pay it back, they never make a dime off their books beyond the advance. So the publisher makes a percentage of each sale, AND keeps the author’s percentage of sales until the advance has been recouped. And, quite often, the publisher owns many of the rights to the book.
The only person who’s about to make money off of my book is me. I don’t have to pay anyone back for anything. I paid Scribe up front to make my book exist, but they don’t have rights to anything, nor do they make a percentage of sales. After Amazon takes its cut of printing and costs, the rest is mine. I just created passive income stream for myself potentially for the rest of my life and it begins on pub day. Am I sad about not getting a book deal? Nah.
3 — I’m A Controlling Little Shit.
Here’s what I’ve learned about books I write: edit them and die. I really don’t like stylistic changes to my work of any kind, and I essentially only want an editor to work with errors, lack of clarity, egregious shit. In the book publishing word, this would be next to impossible. A publisher and editor would have been able to force me to change anything about my book that they wanted (or thought would make them more money), and since my book is aggressive as fuck and very much MY vision for the future of singlehood, we’d likely have chafed each other quite a bit. In the end, I’d have lost. Who knows what they would have done to my child. The horror!
Being a self-published author means that I am in charge of what is said in my book and how I say it. No one had creative input but me—and that includes the title and cover. She’s mine, and no one can tell me what to do. I am a big fan of no one being able to tell me what to do. I am also a very big fan of my own ability to ignore the unsolicited commands and opinions of others.
I wish I was writing this to you from my home, at my desk, with its multiple screens and comfortable chair and lovely ambience. Instead I’m in a hotel room in Prattville, Alabama with my friend and her two dogs and a bucket of very rapidly melting ice. I don’t know if she’s trying to make her mark or leave a scar, but 2021 loves to stir the fucking pot. If anything though, maybe this tells you how serious I have been about making this book a reality, and how not even an act of Mother Nature could stop me from moving forward with my plans for it. I was very lucky to have someone light a self-publishing fire under my ass when I was in a moment of “what if they never say yes” despair. I hope I can pay a little of that forward to one or more of you.