“How are sales going?” I asked in an email to my publisher. I was reaching out for a different reason but since I was reaching out thought I may as well ask.
The response was less than welcomed. In fact, it stirred in me all the doubt and insecurity I try so hard to keep at bay.
“We actually had more returns from retailers than we did sales last month, so the numbers are moving in the wrong direction.”
I want to tell you that I read that fact and digested it as the fuel I would need to get back out there and share my message and book with the world. I want to tell you that I can see this situation for what it is, an opportunity for learning and growth. I want to tell you that I closed my email and created a new marketing plan, one that will get this book and its message into the hands of thousands.
But this is not how I am wired. Those were not my reactions.
Defeated.
Failure.
Less-than.
That is where my heart sits tonight.
I want to tell you.
Putting a book into the world can be painful.
There’s the pain of the process. This kind of pain is important and necessary and on the other side I am thankful for it. The hours spent putting words on paper then deleting them only to put them down in a more digestible and absorbable way. Then on the 29th day of the sixth month when you are 5,000 words short and certain you have nothing else to say and this book will never make its way into the world, the creative juices flow, as they say, and the final manuscript is submitted in the final hour. Then there are the hours and days of going back and forth with an editor, the redline maker. Trying to explain why the 237 words in the middle of chapter seven are relevant to the story all while knowing in your gut that she is right, they should be cut. But each cut is felt deeply. And after weeks of chopping and slashing and redline making, when the final 55,000 or so words are finally agreed upon, you hold up the papers, all 225 of them and you can see in them the pain and the scars and you are stronger and more resilient, able to see it for the gift it was. Proud of your scars. Hoping and praying the world will receive the gift of your words, your heart on paper.
Then, after months of dreaming and strategic plans and thoughtful execution, launch day arrives, the day the book, your tender heart on paper, is birthed into the world.
And while this should be a truly joyous occasion full of celebration and admiration because you wrote a freaking book, there is a different kind of pain. A looming pain. One that may shockingly inflict itself on you. You will know by the numbers…by the success of the book.
What you do not realize, because you can’t know what you don’t know, is that your expectations for the book and for the day and for your whole dang future for that matter were already established and then not met. This creates a pain known as failure and it crushes you in the worst way.
Launch day comes to a close. You head to bed, dizzy from the new life, your book, you just gave birth to. Your expectations have not been met, the people did not show up, the sales fell flat and you go to bed with a pit in your stomach wondering what went wrong…what now?
Then the weeks go by and you are there, tender from having given birth to a thing that is precious and dear and vulnerable to you, but no one comes to visit. When the family gathers for vacation in Hawaii, no one asks to see this new thing or how it is going or raises a glass to the effort it took to get it into the world. And your publishers and book launch team have moved on to the next book. The one with more potential (the things/(lies?) our pain-stricken hearts will believe). And you hold this book, your creation, and wonder what went wrong.
Maybe this is just me? Maybe no other author has felt this way? Maybe.
It has been three months a week and one day since my heart on paper, my second book, made its way into the world. And today I was informed the book is not selling.
This, my dear ones, is a deep kind of pain.
And tonight, I can feel the pain, I can expose it to all of you, all while knowing the truth that my words, this book, are exceptionally valuable. And I could tell myself, “this will only make you stronger!”, “You can only go up from here!”. Or you may say to me, “Well at least you have a publisher, not very many writers even get that opportunity.” Or “You should focus on the people who have reached out and told you how meaningful the book is to them.” While all of these are truth, the reality is, these truths do not take away the pain. And sitting in it just happens to be part of my process.
So, the point of all of this, if there even is one, is to say to the authors and the writers new and old: I see you. I know you. I celebrate you and every word you have so graciously and vulnerably shared with the world. And I sit with you in pain, shouting to you (perhaps so that it may echo back to me), your worth and value as a writer is not marked by numbers. No! Numbers are too rigid, too calculated, too fixed. You worth and value as a writer are measured in the sparks of the heart that jumps in your chest when the words hit the paper. It is measured by the connections between our souls when you so generously pour yours out and it is received by another. And finally, it is measure by the truth that the simple yet profound act of putting our words on paper already exceeds any expectation waiting to be met.
Write on my dear wounded one. Write on.