It’s been two years since ‘Abductions From My Beautiful Life’ was published.
By the end of last year, I’d finished with promotional activities and hoped to relish my freedom by writing something new.
But I entered an uncertain fog. I felt like never writing anything (beyond a private diary) or having anything published again.
Why?
Let’s go back to the beginning.
‘Abductions’ began unwittingly nearly 17 years ago. I was just over a week into first time motherhood, the inside of my head bruised from the battle between psychosis and antipsychotics. I was an inpatient in the Special Care Unit of a private psychiatric hospital, where rooms were stripped of suicide risks and breakfast toast came in paper bags.
I scribbled my first record of psychosis on one of those toast bags. I wrote with no plan. But the words felt true. So, I held onto the bag.
When I returned to finish the Master of Arts (MA) in Writing, Editing, and Publishing (WEP), which I had started before my pregnancy, I sharpened and submitted my toast packet words as part of my final dissertation. My supervisor told me my writing was good, that I should consider expanding it into a memoir.
I took my first nibble of ego boosting carrot and began writing.
I wrote in small, snatched parcels of time in between veterinary work and looking after my daughter. Gradually the manuscript took shape. I had another baby. The postnatal psychosis returned, carrying with it a diagnosis of Bipolar 1 Disorder.
The book was nowhere near finished now.
I slowly navigated my way around the prickly discomfort of living with this illness. I began some mental health advocacy work. Finishing and having my memoir published became the flagship for that work.
When I got too close to be objective, I paid for a full manuscript assessment. The editor gave me pages of specific, helpful feedback and another chomp at the carrot:
‘You have a wonderful manuscript on your hands here. My job is so much easier when the writer can actually write…’
My ego unfurled.
I worked through all the editor’s notes, confident my book would be published.
I became better acquainted with my Bipolar Disorder. Manic, psychotic, and catatonic depressive episodes rendered me too unwell to write or edit for long stretches of time.
When I finally finished, I asked my former MA supervisor if she could take a look at it.
She liked it enough to pass on to her own literary agent, who loved it and offered to represent me.
This easy start fattened my ego further. I believed my hard work was done.
My agent sent my manuscript to publishers across the country. And I entered an era of nibbling at dangling carrots.
The feedback from publishing houses was consistent. The creative departments were enthusiastic: ‘It’s beautifully written, and an important story that needs to be told.’
Always followed by equally consistent (and devastating) feedback from the financial departments.:
‘It is an important story that needs to be told. But it is not commercial enough for us.’ (ie it won’t sell). ‘Best of luck.’
At one point my agent suggested cutting 10 000 words. I carefully trimmed 10 000 words. It made no difference.
After 18 months of coming close often, but ultimately always being rejected, my agent had exhausted her contacts.
I sent it to publishers who accepted unsolicited manuscripts. Some took six months to reply:
‘It is beautifully written, but not commercial enough for us to publish. Best of luck.’
I’d now come too far to give up. I was looking into self-publishing when my algorithm served me another publisher who accepted unsolicited manuscripts. I thought: ‘Nothing to lose.’ and uploaded my baby.
They replied quickly. They liked it, but also felt it wasn’t commercial enough for them to publish under a traditional model.
However, they offered me a ‘contributary contract’. This meant I’d contribute to some of the cost of publication, and they would provide all the services of a traditional publishing house including editing, copy editing, cover art, ISBN registration, printing, and marketing.
I considered my options. My research into self-publication had so far shown that it could be more expensive than the contributary contract. I also reasoned that I wouldn’t need to outsource the steps between manuscript and published book with the contract.
By now my first words on a toast packet were 12 years ago. I was so thirsty for the end of this road filled with carrots and mirages.
I signed the contributory contract.
I floated on relief.
Covid came. Progress was slow, but I was just happy ‘Abductions’ finally had a home.
My first inkling that all was not good landed in my inbox with the publisher’s cover art suggestion – a grotesque image of a woman’s face half smiling in colour, half miserable in black and white.
It was so far from appropriate (let alone good) that working with the publisher to come up with something better, felt impossible.
My friend Sarah put me in contact with her friend Jerry, a talented freelance designer, who worked with me to create a beautiful cover for ‘Abductions.’
For a while it all seemed to be coming together.
But when the publisher sent me my supposedly print ready proofs to sign off on, unease tinged my excitement. I was expecting more edits, specifically copy edits, before this stage.
Within the first ten pages I found typos, extra spaces between words, inconsistencies. Enough to discredit the quality of the writing. I pointed out the errors and asked the publisher to properly copy edit my manuscript.
The publisher returned my manuscript stating again it was print ready. I found more errors. We reached a stalemate. They wouldn’t copy edit it and I would not sign off on a manuscript that clearly hadn’t been copy edited.
Increasingly anxious, I finally looked online and found accounts of other writers being exploited by this same publisher, a vanity publisher with a terrible reputation.
My ego imploded.
I don’t cry often. That night I didn’t just cry, I howled.
I wanted to wrench my book away from them.
I weighed my options. Pull out, haemorrhage more money and my mental health into a lawsuit and then self-publish or find an independent copy editor to do the work my publisher was meant to do, but get it published this decade.
I choked down bitter, thorny pride and found and hired Linden, a free-lance copy editor.
My suspicion that the publisher had neglected to copy edit my manuscript was proven by Linden’s meticulous work. She found hundreds of errors in her copy edit.
I checked and track changed them all, nauseated by having to read my 90 000 words for the thousandth time.
But I finally felt confident that the manuscript was as good as it could be. I signed off on it and was given a publication date of 30 April 2021.
Worry stalked me after my signature. I was now 14 years on from my toast packet scribbles, and not confident my book would be published.
Yet, a month later a box of books arrived, swathed in bubble wrap and new book smell. ‘Abductions’ had been born against the odds.
Predictably my publisher did no marketing. So, I organised what I could myself.
I celebrated ‘Abductions’ over self-catered book launches with people I knew and loved who brought people they knew and loved.
I sent copies to media outlets, and podcasts, and submitted it to be considered for writers’ festivals, mostly with no responses.
I gave author talks and readings to hospital patients, staff, and nursing students at Belmont Private Hospital, where much of ‘Abductions’ is set, and copies were sold at reception.
I successfully applied to have it stocked in Brisbane City Council Libraries and did a series of library talks. It made its way into a street library in my neighbourhood.
I spent a delightful evening with a local book club who had recently read ‘Abductions’.
I met Kath, a local jewellery designer, at one of my book launches. She wrote me a beautiful letter after reading ‘Abductions’. and offered to display and stock copies for sale in her studio.
I began to receive positive feedback from friends and strangers.
I approached a couple of local independent book shops about stocking ‘Abductions’. One refused to deal with my publisher but was happy to accept a small consignment of books directly from me.
It was a scorching reminder that I could lose readers before they even picked up my book because of my publisher’s bad reputation.
About a year ago I received a long email from a stranger.
It detailed everything they thought was wrong with my writing and my book. There was nothing constructive about this nail bomb of words. They followed up with some equally wounding public Amazon and Good Reads reviews. This semi-troll’s snide references to my ‘vanity publisher’ were a glowing hot poker shoved sizzling into my vulnerability.
I could follow my Gen X instinct and say that in the scheme of my self- shattering Bipolar episodes, publishing woes and word nail bombs are fairy floss flimsy. But that’s a glossy sentence slapped over the bumpy truth, a neat simplistic, disingenuous bow to suggest that just because I’ve experienced objectively worse things, any lesser hurt is harmless.
If that were true – why am I still smarting?
Getting ‘Abductions’ published has thickened my skin and given me a good dose of humility. And regret can’t exist alongside the beautiful messages from readers that I’ve filed away to remind me it’s been worth it.
But it has also been exhausting, disheartening, expensive, and filled with the shame of being duped by an exploitative vanity publisher.
And ultimately, all the publishers who rejected my manuscript for not being commercial enough were right. The bookshops sold none of their copies.
So, on a recent sunny Saturday morning I collected my unsellable books. The weight of their pristine pages pressed me for a future.
I looked up and down the long street.
At one end people with no roofs, shouted with alcohol or madness or both and felt the sharp winter wind whip over their bare, calloused feet. At the other end people dressed in privilege, held their madness close to their skin as they sat clustered in trendy cafes.
No neat endings. But I suddenly knew these books weren’t coming home with me.
As I walked, I scattered my little rejects randomly on benches and stone steps. And I loved the freedom of not knowing their destiny. Read, unread, loved, hated, soaked by rain, burnt for warmth, or used as toilet paper.
By the end of the street my hands were free, and I felt lighter.
Thought Food 