Book Reviews
Guest Author •
Jul 11, 2012 
When I was a kid, I played a strange mental game. Several days before a trip away, I would imagine that a monster was out there in the darkness, stalking me.
Each night he would grow closer and closer and closer until finally… he would arrive at my house to find I had left. Howling in frustration, the vile creature would then sniff the air and begin the long journey to wherever I was visiting. But just as he was about to arrive there… surprise! I’d be gone again, usually back home.
I’m not sure what started the game or how I could overlook the glaring logical fallacy that was part of it. Why didn’t he just wait in my room until I got back? Was he on a deadline or something?
The funny thing is: I barely remembered this game until I started thinking about this column. I couldn’t figure out why it even came up in my memory—and then it all clicked.
I get asked a lot why I self-published my novel or whether I’m actively seeking a traditional publisher (I’m not). I can offer you plenty of logical reasons: the indie label has become more acceptable, the agent querying process was taking too long and the economics of delivering a self-published work have dramatically changed with the development of the ebook. All of these are good, true answers.
But they aren’t the main one—at least not for me.
The truth is I’m running out of time.
Writing novels was something I always wanted to do. In many ways, I feel it is the thing I was born to do. Like many other writers, I am sometimes only 50% engaged in actual real life—there are always stories playing out in my head and they can be rather distracting. Yet for something I genuinely enjoy and view as my destiny, I have wasted a tremendous amount of time NOT doing it.
We can partly blame the traditional publishing houses for this. I finished the first draft of A Soul to Steal in 2001, and had reworked it substantially by 2004. But when it came time to try to publish it, I realized I was up against a vast black wall that was so dark I couldn’t see through it, and so high and wide that I never saw the end of it. It wasn’t that publishers were rejecting the novel—I never even got to that stage of the process. I couldn’t even get agents to read it. It was so disheartening that when my life got busy—kids, more challenging job—I just directed my focus elsewhere.
But it would be a mistake to blame this mostly on the Big Six publishers. I think we all know who the real person to blame is—and I see him in the mirror every day.
It’s true I couldn’t see a way to publish A Soul to Steal. I invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that book, and it was going nowhere. But rather than persisting in writing, I gave up. Some of my distractions were legitimate, like my family. Some were definitely not, like trying to reach 100% completion in the single-player mode of Red Dead Redemption.
Two things woke me up from my stupor. The first was reading about Amanda Hocking’s success in publishing her books on Kindle. The second was watching my dad’s progressive deterioration from Alzheimer’s.
My dad was diagnosed when he was 63. At the time, he could blog and still carry on a conversation, but writing was difficult. Fast forward six years, and even talking coherently is a challenge for him. It’s been incredibly hard on my mother, my sister and myself, but it has also unfortunately represented something else: my future.
My dad’s mother had Alzheimer’s. Of her sisters who lived long enough, they all succumbed to the disease. The odds that I will eventually get Alzheimer’s are extraordinarily high. When I see what my father has become, I weep for him, but I am also terrified for myself. His mother was diagnosed at 74. He was diagnosed at 63. For some reason doctors can’t explain, people are getting the disease younger and younger.
So if this is my fate—if I’m even fortunate enough to avoid all the other things before then that could kill me, like cancer or a runaway lumber truck on a highway—it’s possible, even likely, that I will be diagnosed even earlier than my father.
Which leaves me wondering: how much time do I have? I’m 37. Can I make it another 26 years until my dad’s age? Or will it be more like 20? 15? 10?
So the decision to self-publish was ultimately an easy one.
I could sit on the sidelines and wait, hoping that somehow I would break through that huge barrier in front of me and score a traditional book contract. But would that ever happen? And how old would I be if it did?
Or I could publish my book, roll the dice that readers would find it and enjoy it, and try to make my dream come true. I looked at the number of years I might have left and decided to focus on doing what I believe I was meant to do.
I read somewhere once that there comes a time when you realize the distance between who you are and who you want to be becomes an insurmountable gulf.
I wanted to leap that chasm before it became too wide.
I decided to self-publish because I understand now that the monster I pretended was hunting me when I was a kid wasn’t made up. It’s real and it has a name. It’s called mortality. And it has teeth.
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Rob Blackwell is a journalist who currently serves as Washington bureau chief for American Banker newspaper. A native of Great Falls, Va., he has worked as a reporter for the Loudoun Times-Mirror, Eastern Loudoun Times and a columnist for the South County Chronicle. He has made several radio and television appearances, including on NPR, BBC, CNBC and C-Span. He has won several Virginia Press Association awards and was co-winner of the Jesse H. Neal Award for Business Journalism. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.
A great posting and all the best with your books and your future. I hope when you are about 85 you will look back and wonder whether you weren’t being a bit fatalistic. I have just published my book, Lucy Leader 44 Butterfly Drive, on Amazon because I got fed up with being messed around by publishers. Have a good life, Stan
First of all, I really hope that you’ll have a long and healthy life and write as many books as you can and as you like.
The second thing: this is so much inspiring and true; the time does passes by quickly, and if we aren’t doing something creative, something that will stand the tide of time, we will look back and wonder if could have made something different, but it would be gone, and there is nothing we could do to change our past.
I’m writing my first novel, and I can’t hide that you’ve inspired me and motivated me to finish it, and go on the next one, and I thank you for that.
Kliment.
Writing a book is a long, arduous process (or at least, it is for me). I just finished my second (not published yet) and it was painful at times, but now that I’m near the finish line, it was all worth it.
I’m glad my post helped motivate you. I hope to see your book out soon!
Rob
I was very moved by your story Rob, have shared a link to it on twitter. I did manage to find a publisher (Robert Hale) last year at the age of sixty ..at least they accept submissions without an agent! Around the same time I was diagnosed with a very rare and incurable auto-immune disease (Churg Strauss Syndrome) so it has been a very turbulent time. I live in Australia and the prospect of attending the book launch in the UK early next year raises many more questions. I can understand why people self-publish; it’s that desire to communicate, which is so much more important than money…well it is for me anyway. Good luck with everything. I hope you dodge the bullet.
Pauline,
Congratulations on finding a publisher. I’m very sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but I hope your book sells incredibly well.
Rob
I began writing short stories aged 32. Took me 7 years till the first started being published. My job , a 24 hour night and day one, took a lot of my energy and made me move home a lot too. Short stories just about stopped selling in 1987. In 1995, I decided to place all those I had sold into a book with a few I had not told sold. I went to a vanity publisher, mainly because I did not have time to waste, waiting on editors and mail. The company, Avon Books of London, crashed just at they started printing the book. Marketing was part of their contract.. I lost 3000 British pounds in that fiasco.
I gave up writing short stories, but then along came Kindle, and so at age 77, I’m back writing short stories.
Kindle is not easy to understand, and my three books of short stories are hardly touched, not even when they go free, in Kindle Select. It may be something to do with my writing. I don’t know. Something to do with Kindle book keeping. All I know is that I sold stories into well recognized magazines a number of time and more than once. London Magazine, Penthouse, Mayfair, short story International, Woman and Home, the BBC. Perhaps I’m too hard headed to learn to stop writing. If you hear me tapping from my grave, you’ll know I’m still at it. There probably won’t be much else to do down there anyhow.
Coin,
I say keep writing! I have no idea why a book takes off on Kindle or not, but I will say this: I think a big part of it is luck. My book has done reasonably well in the U.S., but is as dead as Marley in the U.K. Why? I have no idea. The key thing is to just keep going on.
I wish you the best of luck.
Rob
Rob, like everyone else I feel you have been through so much with your family dynamics. As far as self-publishing I hear you about time. Sure I have myself to blame for the long intervals between actually writing and over the years I have sent out works that didn’t even get a legitimate response. My reasons for time is my age. I am 53 and not getting any younger so I too decided to self-publish. I agree that indies might have come a long way but I do think the traditional houses have more clout when trying to get the word out. I scout the bookstores by me and the percentage go for the books that are not on the Indie table. Anyway I wish all us indies the very best of luck!
Regards, Vincent Casale
PS I dont know about others in the indie world but a major dissapointment for me was having my book edited and gone over many times at a substantial cost and still the typos baffle me in the book’s content!
Good for you, that you self-published. And I’m sorry for the pain that caused you to get to this point.
I self-published, too, though my reasons weren’t the same as yours. Mom died when I was 11 and I have nothing to remember her by. Dad died when he was 53, so I have a history of parents dying young. I guess I wanted to leave some kind of legacy for my kids (just in case I wasn’t around to help them to adulthood).
Good luck with your book!
Rob, what a moving story. Thank you for sharing it.
It’s too easy to forget time is a finite resource. I needed reminding today.
Kate Worth
Rob, thank you for sharing your story. What an inspiration you are to those who have not yet given themselves the extra push. Sometimes the struggles we face make us stronger. It looks like yours certainly are–kudos to you. Your book is one of my favorite indies. Write on!
Keri
Thanks for the great compliment, Keri. I loved the review you wrote on USA Today!
Rob, first thank you for your heartfelt story. It’s true – we do not know what is around the corner, but taking the plunge to publish your work, that is to be commended. And if it sells a hundred copies, or a hundred thousand, it’s also an awesome legacy that you will be leaving. Kudos to you.
Amen, Rob! You’ve hit the nail on the head. When I got a contract (think small) for my first mystery in 2004, I immediately imagined that I’d be cranking out a book a year. I started work on a political suspense story with settings in Washington, DC and Pittsburgh, PA. When I finished it I spent the next year and a half querying 3 agents at a time. Like your experience, I couldn’t even get them to read the first 50 pages. I found myself discouraged, and although I’ve always enjoyed writing, my heart wasn’t into it with the prospects for publishing so dim. In early 2011 a friend told me about indie publishing. I dusted off KISSES OF AN ENEMY and put in on Kindle, Nook, and a tradepaperback – IndieReader gave it a 5 star review. Since then I have published two more mysteries (one was half-finished), and with positive feedback for both.
Regarding your family medical history, the blessing of living life NOW is that medical science might manage to find a cure/treatment for Alzheimer’s before it manages to creep up on you.
Glad you liked it. I do hope for a cure, of course, but there hasn’t been a ton of hope lately. My key goal is to just focus on living my life as best I can, and that includes being a proud indie author.
I commend you on charting this course. A dear friend of mine, a talented writer who enjoyed a full, creative life, always used the term “life intervened” whenever he became sidetracked. I’m sure his writing career would have been much more prolific and lucrative had he not leaned on that phrase so often. The sad thing is that I am guilty of the same digression. There are always demands on your time; husband, children, elderly or ill parents. I, like you, have witnessed first hand the descent of my husband into the clutches of dementia and see how your life can be so stealthily taken from you. So, like you, I’ve dusted off those manuscripts and am making the commitment to put them out there for good or ill. Congratulations on the publication of your book and I wish you much success.
Rebecca,
I am very sorry to hear about your husband. My entire family has struggled as we lost my Dad piece by piece, but my Mom has suffered the most. It’s hard enough when it’s a grandparent or a parent. It’s even worse when it’s a spouse. My thoughts are with you and your family. Best of luck on the writing.
Rob
Rob, I couldn’t agree more. When I wrote The Last of the Pascagoula, I got many of the “your novel has merit but we only publish three per year” rejections from small presses and a whole lot of “it’s not genre” implications from agents who, understandably, wanted a detective or vampire series. All good, but not me. Like you, I decided my characters deserved a real life on the page, and that I had the power to give it to them in whatever fashion I, as a writer and not a powerhouse publishing network, could. The journey to find people who would review an indie book (bless Kirkus, who gave it a star and me an interview!) and press and bookstores who would take it on has been interesting, fun, and all me. Sometimes I get tired, but damned if it isn’t out there making a small but mighty impression, and in an earlier age and with less sheer courage, we indie authors wouldn’t have stood a chance. Thanks for being another. I’ll look for your book, and I’ll go look for some more avenues for publicity. Here’s to us!
Like you, I’m grateful to live in an age where this is even a possibility. A lot of people bust on Amazon but I’m deeply grateful for the chance to publish books myself and find readers. Viva la ebook revolution!