A Landmark That Will Last a Lifetime
Hitting the NY Times Bestseller list and being realistic about publishing
If you’re hoping for a Big-Five Publisher:
1-10 years to finish the book.
1-3 years to sign with an agent.
1-3 years to hit the shelf.
~ The Publishing Timeline, Allison Williams, Seven Drafts
I don’t necessarily love this book by Williams, and I know I don’t agree with a lot of what she writes about memoir, BUT on many matters (including how long it takes for a book to hit the shelf), I accept what she has to say because, well, she’s right (or very close to being right). There are exceptions to every rule, and the moment someone says, “This is how it is,” you can find ten examples of why that rule may not apply. But again, I think Williams makes a solid case for realism around the full process from idea to book.
At the far end of the spectrum, it could take sixteen years to get a book written and published with a major press. Or it could take as few as three.
📝 Plan your life accordingly.
As for me, having conceived the idea to write a memoir in 1996, Blackbird was out in the year 2000. That’s about four and a half years which is fast when I look back now but at the time felt agonizingly slow.
And so it was that I came home from Chicago to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show. You’ll recall I was in Chicago on Wednesday to tape the show. There would be editing and so on for the people at Harpo to do, and as for me, it was a moment to be with my family before heading out for more touring to include a second pass along the East Coast.
Spencer, Steve, and me congregated in the TV room of our old house and watched the show on abused and abandoned kids unfold, live, on the big screen.
Steve and I were silent, awestruck.
Spencer, four, confused. He was between us, looking at me and then the screen and then at me again. What was his mother doing on the TV but also sitting right here with him? What did it all mean?
My son’s perspective was helpful because I couldn’t agree more. I had no idea what it meant or what would be coming for me. This was a launch into a whole new level of public exposure, including accolades but also attacks I couldn’t imagine, let alone foresee.
I went to the computer multiple times before the show, and after to track the numbers, and over the course of that hour, as the show ran, my book went from some obscure number in the six digits to the very top. It was like tracking a stock on the Exchange. I’m not sure it became number one, but it rose into the double and then single digits.
“My God,” I said. “What have I done?”
Steve, looking at the computer screen over my shoulder, could only shake his head in wonder, too.
There was, I must admit, a certain satisfaction. When you say you’re going to do something and do it, and you shut your critics up in the process, well, it’s a victory. (As you might recall from earlier posts, Steve had been wanting me to earn). But the world is a place that creates problems and then more problems. The moment you clean your house, it’s dirty again and time to start over. The moment you’ve checked off the last item on your to-do list, it’s time to make another. And it would be this way for me and Steve. Yes, I had written and published a book, earned enough to be considered a worthy partner doing her part. For now. But soon enough there would be some other complaint, or shortfall, or problem we’d have to deal with. Marriage counseling in our future, and a divorce eventually. But that was another story.
For now, it was time to re-pack my suitcase and get back out on the road.
To help Spencer through the days and nights I’d be gone (an absence he was getting irritated with to be sure), I had invented a countdown system similar to the one used for Christmas. I collected fourteen boxes, one for each day I was gone, and inside tucked away a treat or toy. These boxes, wrapped and ready, were stacked along the buffet so each morning he’d come down for breakfast and enjoy a little treat. And we talked on the phone every night, though these were awful conversations filled with confusion and tears.
“When are you coming home?” he would say, “come home!! I want you here.” Anger. Confusion. Despair. A child wants what a child wants. Period. My heart hurt not being with him but I had to see this process through. I had to do my part. And yes, there were many a night I lay awake staring at the ceiling wondering what I had been thinking to take this whole publishing thing so far, and shoot so high?
It was a Monday, I believe, or perhaps a Tuesday (or Wednesday), which meant that The Oprah Winfrey Show had had several days to work on the public and now the actual sales numbers were coming in. Kim would be hearing about those numbers, since that was her job, but I wasn’t hearing much. I was like a member of the ground troops in battle. I was on the front, showing up for book readings, signing copies, and then hopping into a car to be shuttled to yet another bookstore or interview. Smiling. Answering questions. Telling yet another version of the same story.
I did notice that more and more people were showing up for the readings, and that every interview I gave began with questions about appearing on Oprah. How was that? Was she nice? And so on. But overall, I was caught in the grind of the process. It seems so sexy, touring for a book, but it’s not for an introvert. It’s a tedious and tiring business. It’s almost punishing for a memoirist, because the true and interesting and transformative work happens in the writing itself, in the reflection, in the editing, and in that moment you write “The End.” It’s not that you are “done” with your healing journey, or your life. No. But you are done with that part of it. At least I felt done.
Then I arrived in Washington D.C., and as soon as I slipped into the car that was waiting, having shaken hands with my new escort who would get me to my hotel, that night’s reading, and tomorrow’s interview, my cell phone rang.
When I think about it, I don’t think it was my cell. I don’t think I had a cell yet. This was only 2000, remember. Today, these darn phones are like extensions of our hands, but back then, they were odd, eccentric, expensive, and slightly suspicious (at least to me). I think the escort handed me his phone which was a big, clunky thing the size of a brick.
“Listen,” Kim said through the phone. “Shh. Shh. Shh.”
Her voice was so low and seemed to be reverberating off metal. Was she in a bathroom? A closet? A stairwell?
“I can hardly hear you,” I said. “What’s going on?”
The driver, a young man I believe, in a dark suit with trim hair, pulled the town car away from the curb and entered the flow of traffic, while I adjusted the phone closer to my ear.
“No one here knows here I’m calling you,” she said. “Don’t tell, either. You have to pretend to be excited when you get the ‘official’ call. It might be Judith,” (the publisher) “or it could be Nancy,” (Kim’s boss). “They’re figuring that out now.”
I was laughing, not out and out laughing, but chuckling, I suppose. Nervousness. Worry. But also a sense of something important coming because otherwise Kim wouldn’t be so covert. I was completely in love with Kim at this point. She had been as steady as a day and as reliable as the seasons. I adored her enthusiasm, too. Her spontaneous joy. I even loved this…her calling me with a secret. But what could it be?
“You’re on the New York Times bestseller list,” she said, finally. Then squealed but I could tell, based on the muting of that sound, had covered her own mouth.
I screamed so loud, the driver stopped the car. The squeal of brakes. The jolt of metal.
“Sorry. Sorry. It’s fine,” I said to him.
“Good news?” he asked, starting up again, watching me with some concern in the rearview.
I nodded while on the phone, Kim whispered again, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. You did it, Jennifer. You did it!”
This was generous on her part because I had only written the book. Kim had done the rest—Kim and the team at Pocket, from the top down; marketing, sales, promotion, management. Every single person (or very nearly) at that House had thrown themselves behind Blackbird with a passion that was heaven sent.
Something in the book itself evoked that response, too, I get that. It was something heartbreaking and tender in all of us, something true about the misery of childhood, and of watching adults making horrible decisions that hurt their children and themselves.
Even later, when members of my step-family came forward to split hairs about their memory of the past and my own, and a mean spirited group of bitterly jealous people back in Portland (my former teacher and classmates to be specific) would say I didn’t deserve my success because I hadn’t published anything literary, yet, it didn’t matter. I had written something that worked a kind of magic on people, myself included. What it was, exactly might never be named, or known, but it had happened.
“You’ve lost everything,” Kim said on the line, her voice thickened with emotion. I could tell she was crying now. The sniffy sound pinging off what would turn out to be a bathroom stall. Kim, crying for that wounded child I had tried to capture in my book. That scared and worried little girl, Jenny. I cried, too.
“But this is forever,” Kim said. “You’ll always be a New York Times bestseller now. They’ll never take this away from you.”
And she was right.
~ Jennifer, 💗
I can't imagine what that must have felt like when you found out that you made the NY Times Best Seller list. Kudos to you and your amazing drive and talent.
I am finding through the process of writing about my journey that I am still discovering or maybe uncovering why things happened the way they did; why I am who I am today. Just this week I had to get out of bed, turn on the light and write a revelation that came into my consciousness. It's not about not being able to let go of the past, it's about validating and accepting the decisions we made.
I love this! I truly believe that writing memoir can be an incredibly powerful form of therapy for those who commit to it. For me, it’s be been the best type of healing catharsis so far in my therapeutic journey. I feel I’ve gotten the most benefits from working in the studio and receiving invaluable feedback, validation, encouragement, and empowerment from my fellow writers and fearless leader (Jennifer at her Blackbird Studio- brownie points to my shameless plug? Only kidding!) No, seriously though, there have been so many epiphanies and a depth of meaningful healing in sharing and working the pieces together. Many of times it has helped to gently pull me out of a denial I was unaware I was in about some aspect of my past trauma. Working on my memoir has lead me through some of my greatest healing breakthroughs in my life so far, and this is coming from someone who’s been in therapy for 16 years and holds a degree in Psychology. Bottom line? Writing can be incredibly therapeutic. Friendly advice (take it or leave it): Just make sure to have your therapist on hand to help you work through what the writing uncovers!