In Fidelity
An Excerpt from Chapter One
My daughter stood beyond the fieldstone fence that separated the house from the beach. From the kitchen window, Lilly's slight form was silhouetted against the sunset and the sea. In that wide-open vista she seemed vulnerable and small. Even from a distance, I could see that she was shivering. Grabbing a jacket for her, I threw one around my own shoulders and walked out, down the sloping lawn that was not yet green because spring had not quite arrived, and out to the edge of the property. It was the last weekend of March and the harsh winds blew against my face. Waves broke wildly against the shore. The sea air smelled briny: seaweed and shells, crabs and mussels. Climbing down a half-dozen stone steps, I reached Lilly's side and handed her the jacket. "It's cold out here." When my seventeen-year-old daughter turned to me, her features were distorted by sadness and her eyes, the green-blue of the sea beyond us, were filled with unshed tears. "Why does being in love have to hurt so much?" she asked. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and offer sympathy, but I knew the object of her affection was the only one who could comfort her completely. When you are young, you fall in love with love itself and do not want anything from anyone but your beloved. Later on, it takes great courage and a little bit of stupidity to fall in love and then you need all the help you can get from everyone around you. But saying anything like that to Lilly would not give her solace. This was her first venture into that madman's paradise of emotion. Love is a tricky disease to cure. Any therapist who predominately treats women, like I do, knows that. While men can fall hard and feel its sting, women are love's victims in a more profound way. Frankly, I was a bit tired of love. Of its vicissitudes and masks. Of its early bloom and all too easy decay. Of its fickleness and its mysteries. If I could have invented an antidote, I would have been the first one to take it. Having fallen out of love years ago, I did not plan on falling in love again. I trusted other things: the solidity of friends, the loyalty of family, each season's beauty, and the ocean's constancy.Advertisments
Feature
Writers: Give up on Giving Up
"What is so terrible about self-publishing anyway?" M.J. Rose asked herself three years ago. Since then she has helped improve the image of self-publishing dramatically.
This article originally appeared in the "Getting Published" newsletter at ThemeStream.com, where you will also find newsletters like "Online Publishing and Beyond" and "Traditional vs. Web Publishing." Subscribe today!_ _ _ _ _ _ _
In 1996 I thought about giving up my dream of becoming a published author. I had written two novels, found a wonderful agent and by her account had the best rejection letters any writer could wish for:
"Rose's novels are riveting but they cross too many genres."
"We don't know how to market novels that don't fit into one category."
"Rose's work is too intelligent to be contemporary fiction but not literary enough to be literary fiction."
"We'd love to see her next novel."
I asked my agent what I should do? I didn't want to give in and change my style to fit the publisher's marketing dilemma. She thought I should write a third novel. I though I was headed for a massive depression.
I actually thought about giving up and tired to figure out what I'd do if I couldn't be a writer.
Go back to school and become a therapist.
Breed Maltese puppies. Open up an antique store.
I made lists of alternative careers. But each one suggested a character in a novel and I'd wind up making notes on possible plots.
All I wanted to do was write. It was all I'd ever wanted to do.
"So, why not just keep writing?" A friend asked.
Good question. Well, it wasn't for the money. I knew few novelists make a living at it. And besides I had a very lucrative career in advertising.
No, it was that to be a writer, to keep spinning stories, I needed to know people were reading what I was writing. Like every author, I dreamed about those reams of readers, hundreds of thousands of them who would stay up all night with my book, caring about my characters and getting caught up in their lives.
Well, if all I needed to keep writing was readers, how many did I need? Perhaps not the multitudes I'd wanted. What about just one? Ten? Twenty?
Would twenty readers keep me going?
Maybe they would.
And if I couldn't do it the traditional way and have my readers find me in a bookstore... maybe I could self-publish my novel, Lip Service, on the web as an electronic download and find those readers myself.
Little did I know the derisive laughter that would greet my decision by everyone I'd ever known who was in any way connected to the field of writing.
To a person, everyone said self-publishing is nothing more than a huge ego-trip.
And they all thought the concept of an electronic file was ludicrous. (Remember, by now it was only 1997. A full three years before Stephen King's Riding The Bullet made e-books an almost household name).
But what did I have to lose? What was so crazy about downloading a book to your desktop and then printing it out or reading it in segments? And what was so terrible about self-publishing any way?
Independent filmmakers who finance their own movies are lauded, I'd explain. Indies even have their own film festival at Sundance.
But it is different. Self-published authors, my well meaning friends told me, are writers whose books are not good enough to get published by the big NY houses, whereas indie filmmakers are iconoclastic visionaries who make gems of movies. But despite them all, or to spite them all--I'm not sure which--I took to the Web.
I had a website built and a book cover designed. And then I spent four months figuring out where my kind of readers lived online. It took over 2000 hours to research and develop a marketing plan, learn about self-publishing, make mistakes and then correct them. I offered hundreds of free books to webmasters who might like to review my novel. I joined endless lists and newsgroups to talk to other writers and readers about what I was doing. I lived online.
And then slowly, very slowly, I started to get reviews. And then I got my first reader. A month later I had ten. Three months later I had 500.
And then, ah then, I was finally a writer. I knew I was okay. I would be able to write my next novel and my next.
Let someone else breed the dogs and sell the antiques.
About 16 months after my web site went live, in February of 1999, Lip Service, the little book that could, was discovered on line by an editor at the Doubleday Book Club who bought it as an alternate book club selection.
It was the first time a major book club had bought a self-published novel. The first time a book had been discovered online. And two weeks after that, Pocket Books offered my agent a contract. At that point Lip Service became the first ebook to cross over to become a mainstream novel.
Lip Service, the book no one wanted in 1996, has now sold over 60,000 copies and has been published in England, Germany, Israel, The Netherlands, France and Australia. The trade paperback version has just gone into a second printing.
In January of 2001, my non-fiction book, How to Publish and Promote Online, co-authored with Angela Adair-Hoy, was published by St. Martin's Press and my new novel, In Fidelity was released by Pocket Books.
In reviewing In Fidelity, Publisher's Weekly praised the book saying it was an entertaining and exciting read. But my favorite part is at the end of the review where they say it is hard to fit the novel into a category but that doesn't matter since "Rose is becoming her own category."
How ironic. The very reason I couldn't get published five years ago was because I didn't fit in. Now it's an accolade.
These days, you can find me at the laptop, working on my third novel or writing about epublishing for Wired.com. And if all this isn't enough of a reason to convince you that giving up are the only two words every writer should erase from their vocabulary, then I give up.
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M.J. Rose is the author of LIP SERVICE (Pocket Books), IN FIDELITY (Pocket Books), and HOW TO PUBLISH and PROMOTE ONLINE with Angela Adair-Hoy (St. Martin's Press). Rose also writes a weekly feature, E-Publishing Ink, every Tuesday in Wired.com.
What reviewers are saying about IN FIDELITY...
Kirkus Review: "Second novelist Rose ... offers a well-crafted study of infidelity, wrapped within the context of a psychothriller.... fast paced-tale.... altogether a satisfying blend."
Publishers Weekly: "A suspenseful tale of murder, madness and forgiveness ... an entertaining... exciting read."