If You Write A Book, Don’t Tell Anyone

There are days when I’m grateful Amazon doesn’t tell me specifically who has bought my book and who hasn’t.

If they did, I would be heartbroken when I read the list and noticed all the important names in my life were not on my list of customers.

Siblings.

Extended family.

People I’m dating.

Best friends.

Mortal enemies who watch every story and follow every juicy piece of gossip.

There wouldn’t be a single one of their names on the list. Well, maybe one or two, but I can count the number of book sales I’ve made from my nearest and dearest on one hand.

That’s just one reaction to me writing a book.

People I knew well have laughed at me when I said I wanted to self-publish a book. Raw, unapologetic ridicule came flooding in as I described my grand plans to write.

To make matters worse, those who haven’t understood my professional quest have tried to sabotage me.

It’s not enough to disagree, it would seem.

I’ve stuffed things up on my own without their contribution. I’ve lost money, I’ve put money towards ideas that sucked, and I’ve pursued ideas that flopped spectacularly.

Despite my list of failures, I’ve only come to harbour one regret: telling my loved ones all about what I wanted when it came to my writing dream.

That and declaring I had written a book and telling them, like I thought they would, actually cared and supported me.

Hey you, you’re going to fail

Point blank, to my face, “Hey Ellen, you’re going to fail.”

Yeah, as easy as that. People looked me in the eye, presented their frank assessment of my future endeavours and expected me to take it.

I don’t know what they expected. They would not have taken such insensitive criticism on the chin if the roles were reversed.

I could understand random strangers doubting me. They didn’t know me from another person on the street. But when it’s people who know me, who know where I came from, the good times and the bad times, it hurts.

And it might be why they said it, too. They had seen me fail once, perhaps recently, when I went into business, or maybe before adulthood or maturity. Or both.

No matter their “reason” (their so-called justification for their brutal opinion), they said it to me without apology. “You’re going to fail at writing and selling your book.”

This still happens, by the way. The way they talk about my writing career is always with a time limit. “When it comes to an end,” is usually what they say.

Or when I must take a break to earn a “real living”.

No apologies

I’m not surprised by the lack of apology, by the way. That mightn’t have been clear; no one has ever apologised for what they said or how they doubt me, or have doubted me.

If they have the gumption to doubt you to your face, to say the words, they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.

As you can imagine, the moment I opened my big mouth, I regretted doing so. My writing pursuits were something I didn’t have to tell them about, either. In my mind, I could have gone about this in private without their input and opinion.

The problem we all have with this reaction from our loved ones is that you can’t predict it. It’s fifty-fifty whether the person will support you or admonish you.

If you know the people in your life well enough, you should be able to predict their reaction. I assumed I could accurately predict these opinions, so I told them.

I guessed wrong, as it turns out.

By the way, proving them wrong is pretty damn satisfying.

Whenever I chalk a win to my name, I don’t immediately think of the doubters. But when the time is right, when I have a moment to reflect, I contemplate them.

I say to myself, "You were wrong. I hope you don’t make that mistake with someone you love again.”

I can take it, but someone else might not be able to.

I don’t get what you do

Why would you want to be a self-published writer?

Why would you want to publish your book without a publisher? Sell the book yourself? Why would you invite pressure, responsibility, and the stress of selling books without professional support?

Questions like this from these loved ones seem to highlight one thing: they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand why I would want to jump from employee to writer, trapped at my desk in my spare bedroom.

And that’s completely ok, by the way. I don’t expect everyone I know and love to want to share the same pressures as I do.

If I’m being honest, I disagree with the desire to work for someone else. I’ve done that and hated it. But each to their own. You don’t see me saying that to them, though.

If only the same attitude, each to their own, could’ve been reciprocated to me when I wrote my book. Their questions =only made me feel like they were implying I was stupid or something like that. There’s rejection sensitivity, and then there’s this feeling.

My regret over telling them, though, set in for me when a particular person accused me of ‘changing’.

This person started tearing apart my working hours, my purpose for writing a book, and my ambition.

Apparently, this ambition meant I had some radical agenda. Like I wanted to poison the world with my business idea. Writing and self-publishing a book was equal to opening a sweatshop, or something unethical.

Do you know when you have those moments when it would have been easy to say nothing rather than something?

I felt that pang of regret with this person, that’s for sure.

Sabotage by thy name

Having an opinion on your writing ambitions, as much as it can suck, is the given right of your loved ones. They can think whatever they want, and they can say it too.

But trust me, regret engulfs you thick and fast when they act on their disgust. They begin to sabotage your business with everything they have, conscious or not.

I had a loved one start inundating me with bad business advice, because writing is a business after all. This person was in a position of power and authority in the business world. They held a position where they could say anything about becoming successful, and I would be a fool not to listen to them.

As I progressed through my business infancy, they kept feeding me advice. As I implemented this advice, my success plummeted.

One piece of advice was so influential that it caused me to change my entire invoicing system for my brief stint as a copywriter. What are some of the possible repercussions of changing your invoicing system?

People stop paying you.

Which they did.

The person feeding me this advice knew this, too. When I told them what happened, they smiled the smug smile of knowledge, meaning they knew something I had to discover the hard way.

I’ve also had people say they’re deliberately not telling anyone about my book. They’re purposefully pretending I didn’t write it because of its naughty content and possible innuendo that may disgruntle polite company.

Isn’t that just heartwarming?! You won’t tell anyone about my life’s work because it might embarrass you a little?

Gees, that’s just wonderful.

I’m pretending to support you (faux fans)

Backstabbers.

Nice to your face, horrible behind your back “friends”.

Those people are everywhere, not only in business and the creative industries, such as writing.

But when money is involved, and you’re putting yourself on the line, they seem worse for some reason. Perhaps that’s my experience and my perception of their reactions.

Yet, I’ve been through a bit in my time — health problems, death, friendship implosions, romance explosions — and those times didn’t compare to my experiences with business fakers.

Most of the backstabbing was done by word of mouth, saying one thing to me and then rubbishing my business to anyone willing to listen.

They could have done this to me even if I hadn’t explicitly told them about my book.

But for these people, I had told them how hard I was working, the sacrifices I was making, the money I was spending and not making. And despite this, they kept talking.

You don’t tell people about your book, hoping they will be your readers. One person rebuffed me with this accusation: “You’re just unhappy I haven’t bought your book.”

The people who don’t have pursuits like this will make wild assumptions, though.

Support in the rarest form

Now, it hasn’t all been bad. There are some people in my life to whom I have zero regrets about telling them about my book. If I hadn’t told them, I would have regretted keeping it.

For every person who hasn’t supported me, there is an equal number of people who have.

My ex-husband was the most significant support, and my mother is the second. Those two understood why I wanted to achieve these goals as badly as I did. They also saw how hard I worked towards meeting them.

The support people are special. Why? Because they take away a small part of the regret, and some days, all the regret.

They remind you that some people lead with support rather than judgment.

And they might not get it, but they respect your writing pursuits. And that’s pretty damn cool.

Does support matter?

When I go to bed at night after working on my writing and building my dreams, am I thinking about these opinions? And when I wake up in the morning, are these opinions stopping me from working on my business?

The answer to both those questions is no.

Support isn’t your oxygen.

But like anything challenging in life, you need people by your side. You need to feel supported and loved, which is a basic part of being a human doing something important and meaningful to you.

Support is like medication. You might not need it daily, but you often need it when things get tough.

Does the regret eat me alive?

I can’t take back what I’ve done; I can’t un-tell the haters what I’m doing with my career. And as a general rule, I don’t live in regret. Without a time machine, regret is a gigantic waste of time.

But I’ve certainly learned my lesson. I've learned I need to protect myself when it comes to something as precious as pursuing a dream, making money, or writing a book.

Because, as much as this is about business, I’m still a person. With feelings. With a fragile self-esteem.

And I can hurt like the best of them.

I don’t tell everyone in my life about the process. I’m guarded about who I discuss “business” with and learned how and when to exercise trust.

I am thankful, though. Despite all the regret, it hasn’t stopped me from pursuing my dreams and publishing the next book.

Only I can take that away from me, and only you can take it away from you, too.

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I write about the emotional and practical reality of being a writer - drafting, doubt, discipline, and publishing while still figuring it out.

Mostly for people who write because they have to, need to, want to | https://linktr.ee/ellenfranceswrites