Just Something on my mind

On November 20, 2023, I released my debut novel.

As an unknown, self-published author, I knew the odds were stacked against me. I had no illusions of bestseller lists or Pulitzer nods; I didn’t expect to birth the next Great American Novel. I told myself, “If Sylvia Rose’s story touches just one person, all the money, time, and effort will have been worth it.”

And you know what? One person did love it. Actually, at least twelve did (according to the Amazon and Goodreads reviews.)

With that small but precious victory, I became determined, no, desperate, to get Sylvia Rose Turner’s story into more hands. But that turned out to be far harder, and far more expensive, than I ever imagined.

Here’s the part I didn’t anticipate: glowing reviews are a double-edged sword. On once hand, they are affirming, the long hours, the revisions, the rewrites, the emotional exhaustion… they meant something. On the other hand, they whisper false hope. “If I can just get the book into the right hands… if just one book club discovers it… if one person tells another about the local author who waited sixty years to tell his first story…”

When sales sputtered, I gave away countless copies, praying for word of mouth. I am not a wealthy man (quite the opposite.) Yet I believed in Sylvia Rose so much, I hired a PR firm. I told them how writing this book saved my life, how Sylvia Rose came to me in a dream and warned me that if I ended my life, I would end hers, too and the world would never know her. So, I canceled the pity party, took down the balloons, and wrote her story.

The PR company was able to get me a local newspaper write-up. I made it on the local news, which maybe a dozen people saw. I put $5,000 on a high-interest credit card. In hindsight, not my brightest move. But I kept telling myself, “If only the right person reads this… if only the world can know Sylvia Rose.”

Then, with great humility, I learned to let the book go.

I moved on. But the financial aftermath and depression that followed became devistating. And let me tell you, no one kicks you harder than yourself when you realize how badly you let your heart overrun your judgment.

Still, people told me they couldn’t wait for my next book. I, perhaps naively, believed that meant I had a ready-made audience. A few kind readers did buy Beneath The Creole Stars, and for that I’m deeply grateful. But the reception has been… humbling. The first month after release is usually a good indicator of how a book will do. And let’s just say: the proof is in the pudding and apparently, very few of my readers have room for Jell-O.

Now, here’s where it gets blunt.

Several people I gave free copies of my debut novel to have contacted me to say they can’t afford the new book, asking if I would send them a copy of Beneath The Creole Stars, for free.

Let me explain something: I pay to print these books. I pay to ship them. I gave away over a hundred copies of my first book, at a cost of $4.29 per book, plus about $5 shipping each. And most of the people asking for another free copy never even left a review.

That is the heartbreak most readers never see.

“You just sat at a computer and wrote a story; it’s not like you did real work.”

For those who have never been forced to face down a blinking cursor or the torment of a relentless and haunting blank page, you may never understand the heart of a writer.

We see stories so vividly in our minds. We write. We edit. We write again. And often (speaking for myself) toss the first draft into the recycle bin, because something feels off. The characters feel one dimensional. The dialogue rings false, or the narrative feels forced.

But we don’t give up. We start again. We wrestle with frustration, doubt, and silence. We pull our hair out. We delete whole chapters. We fill flash drives with half-finished plots, characters who may never see the light of day, entire worlds that exist only in files we may never open again.

Behind every book on your shelf is a labor you can’t see:The hours. The heartbreak. The hope.We don’t just give you a story, we give you a piece of ourselves.

I can’t count the hours I spent writing my two books, because it was never about the clock. And it was certainly never about money (hint: self-published authors lose a lot of money.)

For me, it’s about connection. About saying, “Here, take this piece of my heart. I hope it makes you laugh, cry, feel less alone.”

But here’s the hard truth: I cannot afford to give my books away anymore. I have learned some tough, necessary lessons and cannot repeat the same mistakes.

Yes, we writers want to share our stories. But we also want and deserve to be valued.

So, the next time you pick up a book, run your fingers across its cover, read its blurb, and fall into its pages, try to envision the hours, the sacrifices, the sleepless nights, and the stubborn, unshakable hope that went into it.

Maybe then, the price tag won’t seem so steep.