Anna David's Blog

 

Heather Wood Rudulph has done many things in the publishing world, including co-writing Sexy Feminism: A Girl's Guide to Love, Success and Style with Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (a title that very much captured a specific moment in feminist evolution but makes Rudulph give a tiny cringe now).

We met back in the New York media heyday when things like "readings and rub downs" (yes, book readings with massages) seemed totally normal.

Heather's spent over a decade writing about culture and entertainment for everyone from Cosmo to Rolling Stone and now wears many hats in the words world (including as an occasional editor for my company!) This conversation digs into the realities of traditional publishing: the battles you pick, the dreams that get dashed and why understanding business matters as much as loving words.

Show Notes

Topics Discussed:

Fighting for your title: How Heather and her co-author battled their publisher five times to keep Sexy Feminism as their title and why picking your battles matters when you have so little control
The subtitle that aged: Why A Girl's Guide to Love, Success and Style captures a specific moment in feminist history that "wasn't quite there yet"
Traditional publishing reality check: Self-funded book tours, throwing yourself parties in cities where you have friends and learning that you're essentially your own PR machine
The $0 royalty statement: Getting trolled by emails showing zero earnings, letters about books being destroyed in landfills and the occasional thrill of foreign translations
"You're lucky to be publishing a book": Why authors have to make compromises to get to the finish line but also when to stand firm
The proposals that break your heart: Six months developing a Madonna book pitch, not getting the deal, watching someone else write basically the same book
Writers don't get paid for proposals: The reality that you don't earn anything for pitching articles, writing proposals or preparing to teach—only for the finished product
When the golden curtain opens: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's revelation that publishers only hold real marketing meetings after you've proven you're successful (her Seinfeld book hitting the NYT list)
The advance is not vacation money: Why even six-figure book deals aren't what people think and how writers should already be thinking about the next book before the first one comes out
From entertainment reporter to marketing: How Heather pivoted from writing fluffy celebrity profiles and traveling to spas worldwide to understanding that storytelling lives in business too
The entrepreneurship of writing: Why understanding business isn't selling out—it's survival and how freelancers have to become their own marketing departments
Amazon is the list that matters: Not the New York Times bestseller list but Amazon rankings and reviews from regular people that live forever
"Anybody can write a book": But it's like running a marathon—you have to train, know what you're getting into, keep going when it hurts and want it for the right reasons

Mentioned:

Sexy Feminism: A Girl's Guide to Love, Success and Style
Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (co-author and TV show book specialist)
SexyFeminist.com (their website that became the book)
The era of Feministing and Jezebel
"Readings and Rub Downs" events at Birch Coffee
Work at Cosmo, DAYSPA magazine, LA Daily News and various digital media companies
The sustainability startup that paid $2/word (briefly)
Launch Pad Publishing (Anna's company where Heather now occasionally freelances)

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Jeanne Darst's story is what happens when everything goes right—and then you realize "right" is more complicated than you thought. 

After years of doing plays for 200 people in Vermont, she hit the publishing lottery: a bidding war sparked by a “This American Life” appearance that had publishers hunting her down by the next morning.

Riverhead Books won with serious money, the New York Times loved it, Vogue excerpted it, HBO optioned it and she wrote the pilot. It was the full fantasy—except the show didn't get picked up (Girls was coming out), and she spent the next decade in the Hollywood machine.

Her TV writing career was a success—she got a series of TV staff writing jobs—but her second book, Dad's Trying to Kill Me, couldn't find a publisher (despite glowing rejections). Now she's back to putting on shows while continuing to write, because sometimes the dream coming true teaches you what you actually want.

Episode Highlights:

How Jeanne's This American Life story triggered a massive publishing bidding war overnight
The strategic decision to write a proposal instead of submitting a completed manuscript
Why Jeanne chose Riverhead and editor Sarah McGrath over the highest bidder
The simultaneous media blitz: book launch, Vogue excerpt and This American Life feature
How HBO optioned the book before publication, leading to pilot writing opportunities
The reality of post-success hustle: why the dream is "just the beginning of heartbreak"
Jeanne's second book rejection and the lesson about going to small presses
Why she's returning to grassroots theater after a decade in Hollywood
The father-daughter dynamic when children outachieve their parents professionally

Key Takeaways:

Two years of persistence can lead to overnight success 
Agents and gatekeepers are "smart secretaries" - you must drive your own career
Women wait eight months to resubmit after rejection; men wait three days
Big advances don't guarantee book tours or sustained marketing support
Publishers only invest real marketing dollars in books that are already succeeding
Hollywood packaging deals often benefit agencies more than the writers themselves
Complete projects teach more than abandoned ones - finish what you start
Traditional publishing success requires constant self-advocacy and hustle
Family reactions to memoirs can be complicated, especially around professional jealousy 

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“My second book hit the New York Times list and three months later, I was broke and living in my 1969 VW bus with my pit bulls Roxy and Poor Boy.”

So said Mark Ebner when I interviewed him over the weekend. (It’s for an upcoming podcast episode; make sure you subscribe if you don’t want to miss it!)

Homeless—with pit bulls to boot—months after achieving what so many people I meet dream of!

The reality is oh so different than the dream.

The reality, for me, was hitting the list and being so broke that I couldn’t afford the cab fare to the book party.

The reality is my friend who hit the list—and appeared on Oprah numerous times and had a hit movie made out of his book—not knowing what to do with his life once the hoopla of that book died down.

The reality is the mega famous author I know—New York Times bestselling author and household name—who, a few years ago, had to take a job. Picassos on his wall and having to commute to work.

The reality is Mark Ebner telling me, “The best thing I can say about being a New York Times bestselling author is that I’m glad my father was alive for it, because that’s all it paid.”

Of course, a parent’s pride—if you’re lucky enough to have the kind of parent who gets proud—is priceless. I guess?

But, Ebner continued, he never received one royalty check for that book.

Still, this isn’t bad news. The bad news would be if hitting the list was crucial for book success since the chances of it happening are less than .5 percent.

I actually see this as great news because it means that there are all kinds of ways for a book to be successful that don’t in any way involve bestseller lists.

Things like having your ideal client read your book and hire you.

Things like launching a speaking career and getting paid up to $20,000 a gig.

Things like being able to raise prices for your services.

Things like getting hired to teach at Harvard business school.

Things like turning your book into a TEDx talk or a movie.

Things like landing appearances on the Today show and on top podcasts.

Things like starting a non-profit based on your book and raising enough money that you’re able to send dozens of people to rehab.

Things like getting a whole new lease on your life.

I assure you, these results are not theoretical. They’ve happened to people I know.

They can happen to you, too—provided you let go of the vanity metrics that don’t matter and focus on the life-changing ones that do.

 

Hannah Sward’s publishing journey reads like a masterclass in persistence meets divine intervention.

After years of writing short stories for underground literary journals, she stumbled into a free writer’s group at a library—complete with homeless people sleeping on the sidelines.

That’s where she met Jill Sherry Robinson, an 80-year-old bestselling author who essentially kidnapped her and mentored her until she finished her book.

Through a comedy of errors involving three different agents (one retired three months after signing her), Sward eventually sold her book for a whopping $500 advance.

But here's the kicker: by the time her book Strip came out in 2022, Sward had built such authentic relationships in the recovery community that the book found its audience organically. No Instagram strategy needed—just good old-fashioned showing up. Now she's chronicling her sexual adventures after 50 on Substack, where she’s learned that—guess what?—vulnerability pays off when book deals may not.

Episode Highlights:

How Hannah's 14-year friendship with Anna led to confessing literary jealousy at an AA meeting
The serendipitous connection with 80-year-old mentor Jill Sherry Robinson at a free library writers group
Hannah's unconventional memoir structure: 75 short chapters designed for non-readers
The grueling agent search: 100 rejections and three failed agent relationships before going solo
Publishing with a small press for a $500 advance while her father was dying in hospice
How building authentic community relationships over years created organic publicity opportunities
The launch of "Summer of Men" Substack about sex after 50 that had readers paying to find out what happens next
Why Hannah refuses to repeat the traditional publishing process for her next book

Key Takeaways:

Jealousy among writers is normal and can be processed healthily through honest conversation
Mentorship can appear unexpectedly - stay open to guidance from unlikely sources
Persistence pays off: Hannah's father modeled being "the king of rejection" as a badge of honor
Community building matters more than platform building for authentic book promotion
The publishing process can be an "integrated experience" when you work through disappointments internally
Small press publishing with low advances can still lead to meaningful success and readership
Leading with credentials (blurbs from Nobel Prize winners) gets manuscripts read, not just good writing
Writing partnerships and accountability groups sustain creative work over years
Success doesn't fill the internal "hole" - there will always be compare and despair moments
Sometimes the journey to publication teaches more than the publication itself

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If you’ve read even just one of my posts, you know I tend to go on a bit about how the goal of a book should be to attract clients and not to sell books.

Well, now I’ve got some data to back me up.

Numbers! And I’m not even a numbers person!

Despite the fact that I believe I’m borderline math dyslexic, I helped create a study for an organization called The Evolution of Publishing Institute that surveyed 100 Los Angeles residents about how authorship affects their hiring decisions and willingness to pay for professional services.

And I’ll tell you up front: the results are so dramatic they almost seem fake.

The Author Premium Is Real (And Massive)

Here's what we found: 82-86% of people prefer hiring professionals who are published authors over those with identical qualifications who haven't written books.

Yes, identical qualifications. Same experience, same credentials, same everything. The only difference? One person wrote a book.

But it gets better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.

Published authors can charge 40-65% higher consultation fees. In some cases, potential clients are willing to pay double.

Double. For the same service. Because that person wrote a book.

The Trust Multiplier That Changes Everything

The study found something even more striking: 86% of people trust content more when it's created by book authors.

We tested this specifically. Same blog post, same expertise level, same everything. When we told people the author had written a book, trust shot up by 6.1x.

Six times more trustworthy. Because of a book.

This isn't about the quality of the content. It's about cognitive bias. It's about how our brains are wired to associate published expertise with authority.

Does the traditional publishing industry know this? I think? But it’s not a focus for them since they’re invested in you selling books and not making more money in your business.

Where It Gets Ridiculous

We tested LinkedIn headlines. Two business consultants with identical descriptions:

"Business Consultant | Helping Companies Scale": 28% preference

"Business Consultant | Bestselling Author | Helping Companies Scale": 72% preference

Adding "bestselling author" to your LinkedIn headline creates a 44 percentage point boost in professional appeal.

For conference speaking? 83% prefer a CEO who also authored a business book over a CEO of an equally successful company who hasn't.

For thought leadership credibility? An executive with a strong LinkedIn presence gets 32% preference. Add "authored a book" and it jumps to 68%.

The Marketing Consulting Gold Mine

The biggest surprise in the data: marketing consultants who are published authors have a 72 percent point advantage over non-author consultants with identical qualifications.

This makes sense when you think about it. If you're hiring someone to help with marketing and they can't even market themselves enough to get a book published, what does that say about their abilities?

But the same pattern holds across all professional services. Business consulting: 64 percentage point advantage. Financial advising: 38 percentage point advantage.

Even in the most conservative field we tested, published authors have a massive edge.

Why Traditional Publishing Hates This Data

This study proves something the traditional publishing industry doesn't want you to understand: the value of your book has nothing to do with your publisher or your advance.

The study didn't ask about Big Five publishers versus indie presses. The people surveyed didn't care about advance sizes or bestseller lists. They just thought: "Is this person a published author?"

The traditional publishing industry wants you focused on their metrics—advance sizes, sales figures, bestseller lists—because it keeps you dependent on their approval. But the real value happens in your business, your career, your professional life.

The Cognitive Bias We Can't Ignore

Before you get too excited, let's acknowledge what this data really shows: people make irrational decisions based on credentials that may have nothing to do with actual competence.

A book doesn't automatically make you better at your job. Publishing a memoir about addiction recovery doesn't make you a better marketing consultant. Writing a business book doesn't guarantee you can actually run a business.

But human psychology doesn't care about logic. We use shortcuts to make decisions. "Published author" is a powerful shortcut that signals expertise, authority and credibility.

Is this fair? No. Is this reality? Absolutely.

 The Real ROI of Book Writing

The study concludes that writing a book may be one of the highest-ROI professional development investments you can make.

Think about it: what else can you do that creates a 40-65% pricing premium? That gives you a 6x trust multiplier? That makes 80% of potential clients prefer you over equally qualified competitors?

An MBA? Maybe, if you're lucky and in the right field. Professional certifications? They help, but nothing like these numbers.

A book doesn't just make you money through sales. It makes you money through everything else you do for the rest of your career.

The Limitation They Don't Want You to See

The study has one important limitation: it assumes "generic published author" without considering book quality, publisher or sales success.

This is actually great news for you.

It means the benefit comes from being published, period. Not from being published well. Not from having a Big Five publisher. Not from selling thousands of copies.

Just from being able to say, "I published a book."

The traditional publishing industry has spent decades convincing you that only their approval counts. That without their stamp of validation, your book doesn't matter.

This data suggests otherwise. The credibility boost comes from authorship itself, not from jumping through their hoops.

What This Means for You

If you're an entrepreneur—consultant, coach, advisor, speaker, freelancer—and you haven't written a book yet, you're leaving money on the table.

Serious money.

If you have written a book but aren’t leveraging it in your professional branding, you're missing out on measurable competitive advantages.

And if you're still waiting for traditional publishing's permission to call yourself an author, you're playing a game where the house always wins.

The Evolution of Publishing Institute's "Author Credibility in Business" study surveyed 100 Los Angeles residents about hiring preferences across professional services. Full disclosure: I serve on the Institute's advisory board and helped design this research to understand the real business value of authorship. To download the study, click here .

Oy was there an explosive NYT story this week for anyone interested in how book publishing works.

You could argue that with that sentence alone, I completely missed the point of the story.

See, it’s about a billionaire named Amy Griffin who wrote a memoir about her recovered memory of being sexually abused by one of her teachers. This memory surfaced while she was under the influence of psychedelics and there’s ample evidence that it is a false memory.

Caveat, of course: Never doubt a woman’s story, etc etc etc. I get it. But the reality is that not all stories from all women are true and these stories ruin people’s lives. Caveat on top of caveat: I have no idea if Amy Griffin’s memory is true; I’d never heard of her until yesterday!

So there’s a great deal in this story that could incite a lot of conversation around drugs, false memories, allegations of abuse and more.

But what fascinated me the most was her publishing experience. Amy Griffin was the first author ever to be heralded by all three kweens of the book world—Oprah, Jenna and Reese. She was also touted by Gwyneth, who never revealed that Griffin was her company Goop’s primary investor. With that kind of support from the most influential of people (when it comes to book sales), how could Griffin NOT sell over 100,000 copies?

It’s perhaps overly simplistic to say that Harris bought her way onto the New York Times list. But perhaps it’s not? Accepting favors from the rainmakers when it comes to book success is just a more elevated version of the game that was considered so pathetic just a few years ago, no?

To be clear, I would happily accept all the favors from the people Griffin did, and probably, like her, then accept all my accolades without ever saying that the people who helped me might have had ulterior motives so my admission into the bestselling author club was perhaps not achieved by my own merit.

But my point is this: Griffin is the sort of person who achieves traditional publishing success. Not the 99.9% of other authors out there.1 The situation reminds me a bit of when I worked in the celebrity journalism world and was a first-hand witness to the sheer number of free sh*t celebrities receive. But the people who need these gifts the least are the ones receiving them, I marveled. I knew better than to say out loud because…duh.

We all know that money doesn’t buy happiness and that resenting someone for being a billionaire who didn’t earn those billions herself is pointless. I’m sure Griffin suffers, because that’s what her actions suggest.

But it’s worth pointing out that the publishing world is just as unfair as a world that allows someone with Griffin’s power to go against someone with her former teacher’s. Again: duh. Still, people aren’t rational when it comes to anything creative. We think things like, My idea is so important and talent so great that Oprah/Reese/Gwyneth/fill-in-the-blank will discover me even though I have no way of reaching them. And then we’re devastated when it doesn’t happen.

We do this because creative work is irrational—God-inspired, as Elizabeth Gilbert2 talked about in her iconic TED talk. Also, I know the “it will be different for me” delusion all too well since it happened to me six times before I woke up.

This is one of the reasons I argue so vehemently against the traditional publishing route, which sets you up for failure. It’s why I argue for the authority-building route, which sets you up for success if you approach it correctly. You don’t need to be a billionaire to have the second route change your life; you just need to go in with open eyes and a plan. And by doing that, it could actually make you millions.

1

YES of course there are exceptions. But not one of those exceptions got the sort of support that Griffin did from power players.

2

I am totally obsessed with her new book, as evidenced by this rave I gave it on KATU this week.

Oy was there an explosive NYT story this week for anyone interested in how book publishing works.

You could argue that with that sentence alone, I completely missed the point of the story.

See, it’s about a billionaire named Amy Griffin who wrote a memoir about her recovered memory of being sexually abused by one of her teachers. This memory surfaced while she was under the influence of psychedelics and there’s ample evidence that it is a false memory.

Caveat, of course: Never doubt a woman’s story, etc etc etc. I get it. But the reality is that not all stories from all women are true and these stories ruin people’s lives. Caveat on top of caveat: I have no idea if Amy Griffin’s memory is true; I’d never heard of her until yesterday!

So there’s a great deal in this story that could incite a lot of conversation around drugs, false memories, allegations of abuse and more.

But what fascinated me the most was her publishing experience. Amy Griffin was the first author ever to be heralded by all three kweens of the book world—Oprah, Jenna and Reese. She was also touted by Gwyneth, who never revealed that Griffin was her company Goop’s primary investor. With that kind of support from the most influential of people (when it comes to book sales), how could Griffin NOT sell over 100,000 copies?

It’s perhaps overly simplistic to say that Harris bought her way onto the New York Times list. But perhaps it’s not? Accepting favors from the rainmakers when it comes to book success is just a more elevated version of the game that was considered so pathetic just a few years ago, no?

To be clear, I would happily accept all the favors from the people Griffin did, and probably, like her, then accept all my accolades without ever saying that the people who helped me might have had ulterior motives so my admission into the bestselling author club was perhaps not achieved by my own merit.

But my point is this: Griffin is the sort of person who achieves traditional publishing success. Not the 99.9% of other authors out there.1 The situation reminds me a bit of when I worked in the celebrity journalism world and was a first-hand witness to the sheer number of free sh*t celebrities receive. But the people who need these gifts the least are the ones receiving them, I marveled. I knew better than to say out loud because…duh.

We all know that money doesn’t buy happiness and that resenting someone for being a billionaire who didn’t earn those billions herself is pointless. I’m sure Griffin suffers, because that’s what her actions suggest.

But it’s worth pointing out that the publishing world is just as unfair as a world that allows someone with Griffin’s power to go against someone with her former teacher’s. Again: duh. Still, people aren’t rational when it comes to anything creative. We think things like, My idea is so important and talent so great that Oprah/Reese/Gwyneth/fill-in-the-blank will discover me even though I have no way of reaching them. And then we’re devastated when it doesn’t happen.

We do this because creative work is irrational—God-inspired, as Elizabeth Gilbert2 talked about in her iconic TED talk. Also, I know the “it will be different for me” delusion all too well since it happened to me six times before I woke up.

This is one of the reasons I argue so vehemently against the traditional publishing route, which sets you up for failure. It’s why I argue for the authority-building route, which sets you up for success if you approach it correctly. You don’t need to be a billionaire to have the second route change your life; you just need to go in with open eyes and a plan. And by doing that, it could actually make you millions.

1

YES of course there are exceptions. But not one of those exceptions got the sort of support that Griffin did from power players.

2

I am totally obsessed with her new book, as evidenced by this rave I gave it on KATU this week.

A few months ago, an author named Amie McNee got the golden ticket: Jay Shetty invited her on his podcast. After the experience, she expected what anyone would: a major jump in sales. What happened instead?

Nothing. (And she was cool enough to write about it.)

Now, to be clear, “nothing” is all relative. As Jane Friedman broke down, McNee sold 3,487 copies in her first week of release and about 12,000 copies over the first three months. Her Instagram following is about half a million; she has a Substack with 26,000 subscribers.

In other words, “nothing” to her is not what “nothing” is to many writers (she sold around 300 copies the week of the podcast’s release, but had sold that same number [actually a few more] the week before.)

That being said, the likelihood of tons of listeners buying an author’s book when they’re on a massive podcast is not great. Jay Shetty listeners are fans of Jay Shetty, not of Jay Shetty’s guests. It is a misconception to believe that we can step into an influencer’s orbit and automatically be able to borrow their audience.

There are exceptions of course: last year, on a flight to Austin, I was sitting next to a comedian named Ron White. I didn’t know who he was but when he told me he was flying to Austin to open for Joe Rogan, I asked a bunch of questions and he was super cool and answered them all.

One thing he told me is that he’d talked on Rogan’s podcast about doing ayahuasca at a place called Rythmia Life Advancement Center in Costa Rica and that Rythmia later told him that his mention on the show transformed their business.

Now, White isn’t an author (he actually has written a book but it’s safe to say he doesn’t introduce himself as an author first). Still, he was on the world’s biggest podcast talking about something and tons of people who heard him went and spent a lot of money on that something.

So why did it “work” in this case? Well, White is something of a regular on Rogan (he’s been on the show at least five times). He performs with Rogan and seems to be in the inner circle. Also, he was talking about something many Rogan fans would be into: alternative treatments. Plus, he didn’t personally benefit from his recommendation so it meant a lot more. Finally, there are people who think going to a tropical location to do ayahuasca is a lot more appealing than reading a book1.

All of this means that the audience was primed for White’s recommendation and trusted him more than they would the average Rogan guest. I have to imagine that if White promoted a new book on Rogan, that would very much move the Amazon needle.

So if going on podcasts is so useless for most of us when it comes to selling books, why do I tell all our clients to go on podcasts?

Because you shouldn’t approach publishing a book with a goal of selling a boatload of copies. You should approach it with the goal of attracting the right people to you—and to your business. When I went on Good Morning America for Make Your Mess Your Memoir, my Amazon number didn’t budge. But, over time, the appearance brought in probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business.

As I often say, I’d rather sell 100 books to my ideal readers and clients than 10,000 to people who will be mostly indifferent.

My second client ever was someone who heard me on Joe Polish’s I Love Marketing podcast and reached out to see if I could write and publish his book. I barely even had a company then.

I discovered Alan Weiss when I heard him on Noah Kagan’s podcast. I then bought his book and when I finished it, bought a ticket to his next event in New York. In other words, that one interview he did converted me into someone willing to fly herself to another city and buy a not inexpensive ticket to his event.

(BTW, at that event, Alan went around the room and asked each of us how we’d heard about the event—that is, what “converted” us into paying customers. Then he marked down what everyone said. He was trying to make the point that a book is the best marketing tool that exists—and he did. And I have proof because I took a picture!)

That’s not to say that a podcast interview can’t generate a lot of book sales. Alex Sanfilippo told me about someone he knew who went on a podcast a year after his book came out and sold 1000 copies.

But if selling books is your goal, you’re setting yourself up for at the very most failure and at the very least an uphill battle.

Just think about it like this: have you ever been in a situation where you had to work really hard to make someone like you? You’re basically tap dancing for approval? And then you’re suddenly around people who like or love you and you realize it doesn’t have to be that hard?

That’s what trying to sell the world versus trying to sell the people who will love and appreciate and buy from you feels like.

The numbers may follow. Ryan Holiday talks about trying to attract the smallest niche possible because, he says, when you write a book that people feel is so specifically for them, they feel seen and then start telling everyone else to buy your book. You basically convert readers into mini publicists.

That’s why the expression “when it’s for everyone, it’s for no one” exists.

Sure, converting the masses would be great. But I strongly suggest creating a book that does so much for you that the masses would only be frosting on an already delicious cake.

The best part of getting a traditional book deal is hearing you that you got the book deal.

That’s when hope springs eternal.

Your future as the next Mel Robbins or James Clear—your appearances on TV and in the New York Times and signing at sold-out events—awaits.

You allow yourself to daydream about potential outcomes. Visiting Italy would be nice in the summer and surely the country will want you there when the Italian translation takes off?

You may envision yourself on set when the inevitable movie is made from your book. Will you ask for a director’s chair?

You try to temper all of these thoughts. You know they’re long shots. But getting a book deal in the first place was a long shot—you’ve heard that something like one in 10,000 proposals sell to Big Five publishers. You defied the odds once. Why not again?

Inevitably, you don’t. Unless Mel Robbins or James Clear or Glennon D. is reading this, in which case I say hi and btw I don’t think you’ll relate to this post.

I recently stumbled across a post by an author named Charlotte Shane who spoke to 10 tradionally published authors about their experience and it’s such a service that they all shared the raw, unfiltered truth. Because your book publisher won’t! You can see the post here but I’ll summarize below with some thoughts about how I believe you can avoid this fate.

Case Study 1: Charlotte herself first confessed that she like "a flop for months" after her book came out, despite the fact that her book sold nearly 13,000 copies. 13,000 copies—as in, 43 times more than the average book sells! She explained that she kept waiting for some undefined validation that never materialized.

She writes about her feelings with such nuance and brilliance that it would be a disservice to her if I tried to summarize them. But the truth is that even selling 43 times the average isn’t enough to get validation from your publisher. That’s reserved for that rarefied community of authors whose books break through to non-readers (something I described in this video that I never link to despite its massive number of views because I hate how I look in it and vanity trumps all I guess).

When 85% of authors don’t earn out their advances and 58% of publisher revenue comes from backlist titles1, you have to sell a lot better than 43 times the average to be treated like a success by your publisher.

Which leads me to…

Prescription 1: Tell yourself throughout the writing and launch that just doing the book at all is making it. Create a book that showcases your expertise (this is much easier when your book is non-fiction but I accidentally did it with my first novel). Your external validation can come from the steady stream of clients you attract because of your authority.2

Case Study 2: Lydia Kiesling described being in a "horrible state" after her first book—anxious, agitated and desperate to sell her next book too quickly.

That’s something I’ve seen probably hundreds of first-time authors go through, since you’re only as good as your last book, which means your success is fading with every day that passes.

Prescription 2: Make that first book do so much for you that you can approach the second one, if there is a second one, with excitement and not fear.

Case Study 3: Mattie Lubchansky called herself "sort of a wreck" and "completely bugnuts insane" around her latest release. She noted it's simultaneously the same stressful experience and somehow worse each release.

This was 100% my experience doing my six books for HarperCollins. Each launch extracted a bit more of my soul and when I got to the sixth, that soul seemed long gone and I decided I hated writing.

It took me years to discover that I didn’t hate writing at all. I just hated the writing business.

Prescription 3: Set yourself up for success by only hinging your hopes on things you can control—like doing the best book you can to attract clients and asking for Amazon reviews and having a super fun party that you know won’t help with book sales but will for sure help you make the launch into the sort of celebration you deserve.

Case Study 4: Daniel Lavery described feeling disappointed when his expectations weren’t met.

Oh, do I get this one. As the saying goes, expectations are resentments under construction and I may as well have been wearing a brick layer’s uniform for the decade I was being published traditionally.

The antidote is to keep the expectations to those things you can control (see Prescription 3) but also to take the wide view. The life of a book is long; it’s just that traditional publishers don’t see it that way. They focus on the book’s launch week because that’s how they can decide which authors to support. This means that if you don’t have success right out of the gate, you’re on your way to being ghosted by them.

When Party Girl came out in the aftermath of the Judith Regan debacle, my expectations were, to put it mildly, not met.

But the truth is that first book of mine is the gift that keeps on giving.

When I released the audiobook a decade after the print book came out, an incredibly successful musician listened to it and then reached out to me and asked if I’d be his sober coach. I explained that I wasn’t a sober coach. He told me he’d been to every sober coach, every MD, every PhD, and none of them could help him with his addiction. He wanted the author of Party Girl to be his coach. Would I consider doing it for $1000 an hour?

I ended up working with him for years, though I talked him down from $1000 an hour. I think I really helped him.

Just yesterday, I talked to the producer who most recently optioned the rights to Party Girl about another producer he wants to attach to the movie based on it.

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about me releasing a PG version of the book.

And that’s certainly not the end of the Party Girl story. I have every belief the movie will get made. In other words, thanks to direct actions I have taken, my expectations have more than been met; it just took a lot longer than I expected.

Prescription 4: Remind yourself that you deserve to have more than a week to benefit from something you put your heart and soul and time into. Your heart and soul deserve some time before you get out the calculator and start assessing. Remain open to the fact that your expectations just haven’t been met…yet.

Case Study 5: Jaya Saxena felt "screwed over" by her December 2020 release date and spent time "stewing in misfortune."

One of the more frustrating aspects of traditional publishing is the fact that you often don’t have control over your writing, title, cover or release date. But I’m of the firm belief that there’s no such thing as a bad release date—provided you approach it correctly.

The problem is that traditional publishers don’t think that way. They’re thinking about setting up their “sure thing” authors for success with certain release dates and then dumping the other ones other days. What if, instead, they brainstormed with their non sure thing authors about how to make any launch date a great one?

I released my book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir, in July of 2020—that is, a few months into lockdown and one month into Black Lives Matter protests. I think it’s safe to say that the last thing anyone cared about right then was a book on writing. This bad timing was at least in part intentional: I wanted to put my “there’s no such thing as a bad release date” philosophy to the test (most of the publishing I do for myself is experimental so I can test out what could work for clients).

I decided to pitch Good Morning America a story on how writing could be used a tool to help with pandemic-related depression. Was there anything in my book about using writing as a tool for depression? Not a thing. But because I framed the book around what was going on at the moment, rather than just trying to get publicity for my book, I scored a five-minute segment on the biggest morning show in the world. It brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business and I think helped a lot of people who were dealing with pandemic-related depression.

That’s not to say that a writer who feels screwed over by their publisher’s release date is wrong. They are being screwed over. It’s just not the date that’s the problem; it’s that their publisher isn’t effectively strategizing with them about how to make their release date work for them.

Prescription 5: There are 365 potential days to release your book. If you can control your release date, pick the one you want. If you have no say over your launch date, find a way to make it work for you. Get creative. Strategize. And then remember your launch isn’t the end but the beginning (see Prescription 4).

Again, you can see the amazing post all these anecdotes came from here.

Oh and please remember when I paint publishers as ogres who don’t care about anyone but Glennon, I’m not saying they’re bad people—just business people. In other words, I may be making it sound like I hate the player but really I only hate the game.

Which is why I started a new one. If you want to know more about it, you can always click here.

When I lived in San Francisco, all the women said, “Dating in San Francisco sucks.”

When I moved to LA, all the women said, “Dating in LA sucks.”

When I moved to New York, all the women said, “Dating in New York sucks.”

I believed them every time, as I bounced between those three cities, trying to determine which one sucked the least when it came to dating.

Eventually I discovered that the Erewohn smoothie drinkers were right: reality truly is what we make it. Since we’re the ones with the narrator in our head telling us what’s going on, it’s up to us to determine whether our life is a rom-com, horror movie or some other genre entirely.

Once I realized this (and was back living in LA, where people said dating sucked with even more vehemence than they said it in San Francisco and New York), I came up with a response to anyone who started talking about dating with that familiar “oh, it sucks” sigh. My response became a bit of a mantra. It went like this:

Dating is fun.

Did I think dating was fun? God, no. It was mostly horrific with a smattering of fun. But I knew that if I told myself that dating was fun, it would keep me from misery bonding with the rest of my single friends. I thought this attitude would eventually help bring about the result I wanted: to not have to date.

This means when I went out with the guy who claimed to be 47 and revealed at dinner he was 60 but it was okay because he “looked” 471, I told myself, “Dating is fun.”

When I went out with the guy who sat in silence for so long that I eventually felt compelled to tell him that it was his responsibility to at least try to contribute to the conversation: dating is fun.

When I went out with the guy who accidentally revealed he had a date later that night with a friend of mine: dating is fun.

(Every now and then it was fun but…well, you know that expression about stopped clocks isn’t just true when it comes to stopped clocks.)

My point—almost seven years into my relationship, when all those years of horrific and occasionally glorious dating seem like a bit of a fever dream—is that we get the results we tell ourselves we will. I firmly believe I got what I wanted in the end because I refused to believe what could have been my point of view: dating sucked and I’d be stuck in sucky land forever. I told myself a different story and by doing that, I created a different story.

And that’s what I’m doing with AI now. I simply refuse to buy into the “AI is coming for all of our jobs” fear-mongering. Yes, I know there are AI-written books being released as I write this. And yes, I have witnessed firsthand how much more time and money I can save by having AI do something I used to ask another human (or myself) to do. Yes, AI’s ability to produce is astounding and occasionally terrifying. But I also believe that if I tell myself AI is coming for my job, I can bring about that reality.

I’m not saying that AI isn’t coming for a lot of our jobs. It already has. But you want to know whose jobs it’s coming for now? The ones held by people who have been setting themselves up for it by constantly proclaiming that it will happen.

You know who will be last victims (if indeed they end up up being victims at all)? The people who didn’t drink the misery Kool Aid, who decided once they saw how mammoth AI was that they were going to use it rather than be used by it. The people who set out to master these new tools rather than spend all their energy fighting them, or just yelling about how bad they are.

I understand how Polyanna-ish or out of touch this point of view may seem when there’s already so much proof that AI is taking away people’s jobs. But new developments are always taking away people’s jobs. In the early 2000s, I got very comfortable making $2 a word writing for magazines when the Huffington Post came along and showed that lots of people were writing for free. Then places like Forbes and Fast Company one-upped that and started inviting people to pay to write for them.

The entire industry I’d built my career around was gone. So I had to starve or figure something else out and my biggest regret is that I didn’t wake up and start finding my new path sooner. I spent years pitching articles to make a few hundred dollars and trying to make a living off of running websites when dynamic ads had decimated the web business, rather than looking at the new options out there.

That means that if you’ve been pounding the drum of AI despair, it’s time to stop. You don’t need to become a big fan of it but you do need to learn about it before you become the parent who needs their kid to show them how to text.

Maybe today is the day you…

Revise your website so that it’s more AI-friendly. Or upload your book to an LLM to have it select the most compelling quotes for you to use to promote your book on social media. Or ask AI to proofread the copy on your site. Or use it to help you brainstorm titles for your next book.

But don’t confuse educating yourself with surrendering to the lowest common denominator. Don’t go and have AI write your book or use a schlocky AI book publishing company to publish your book. Don’t let an AI bot sell you on bogus book marketing services.2

But most of all, don’t freak out about AI stealing your work. Instead start focusing on not being left behind.