Debut authors find being published ‘disappointing’ – sorry, what do they expect?

So, you wrote a book. Well done. And you got yourself a literary agent. Again, well done! And your agent got you a book deal with a major publisher. Extremely well done!

Your dream has come true. All that toiling at the keyboard, snatching frantic hours of writing between the day job and the domestic chores and watching Succession and all the other things that get in the way of you fulfilling your lifelong ambition has paid off. The life of a bestselling, feted, full-time author is finally–

Sorry for that squalling, scratching sound as I rudely drag the needle across the record, but it’s the time-honoured method of signalling that we really need a bit of a reality check here.

This week the Bookseller, the trade magazine of the publishing industry, revealed the results of a survey carried out among authors whose debut book had come out. And the overarching sense was that those who had finally had their first novel published found it all a bit… disappointing.

More than that, some respondents actually reported that their mental health had suffered as a result of the sheer underwhelming nature of the publishing process.

That is a terrible thing, to have someone feel like that at what should be one of the happiest times of their life. However, it does force me to wonder… what did you actually expect? And why?

One of the authors surveyed said: “I’ve been exhausted and anxious since about two months before publication until now, about a year on. I have developed quite severe anxiety, for which I am now taking medication.”

Another wrote: “It has taken me a long time to reconcile the train wreck of my debut. I had to work hard to recover from it, both professionally and mentally.”

In June, I will have my fifth novel published by Orion, one of the big publishing companies in the UK. It will be my ninth traditionally published novel in 10 years, not counting the four small press books that preceded them.

Publication day is a Thursday. We might be down to chips and egg for tea, then, after the previous weekend’s big shop has been ravaged. I might watch Question Time, if it doesn’t get me too radged up. The bins will have to go out. I might be on social media more than usual, and I’ll be checking my Amazon rankings. But that’s probably it.

I’m long in the tooth, book-wise, have been around the block a few times, and other cliches to be avoided in prose writing. But even when I was a debut, I never really expected fireworks and champagne corks and a grand launch party where I would be the star of the show.

I mean, all those things would be nice, but I recognised early on that while getting a book deal might make you feel like the homecoming queen at the prom, it’s actually just a job like any other. And when’s the last time your boss sent a flock of doves into the sky and rolled out the red carpet for you just because you did your job as you were meant to?

I do not at all mean to disparage people’s crushing disappointment at the way their writing career has failed to live up to the hype. But where does that hype come from? As with most things in life, I blame social media.

Twitter especially is full of writers who like nothing better than to talk about being a writer, possibly more than they actually like writing. Just click on the #amwriting hashtag if you dare.

“Sent off my new book to my editor!” we trill on Twitter. “My agent’s got me a translation deal in Lithuania!” We talk as though we have an entourage of staff following us around as we waft about in a kaftan, waiting for inspiration to strike.

This gives people a false sense of what being an actual, working writer is like. My agent and my editor are not mine really. They are “mine” for a tiny portion of their working day, along with all the other writers they represent and edit.

Many authors in the Bookseller survey spoke of feeling a bit abandoned after publication. Well, yes; once your book is out, your editor is on to the next one. That’s their job after all. It might seem a bit like making tins of beans rather than producing high art, but to be honest, being a commercial fiction writer has more in common with the former than the latter.

I’m not saying that publishers couldn’t perhaps do more to give new authors a realistic idea of what exactly will happen during the publishing process, but writers can do a lot to help themselves.

For starters, don’t build a picture of what life as a published author will be from social media or the sorts of movies where someone has a book published and then goes and buys a huge house in the country, where further adventures ensue.

I hate to say it, but to be a writer requires a bit of toughness, or at least, pragmatism. You might well be the next Richard Osman or JK Rowling, but the chances are you’ll be the first you, instead. And that might not mean unicorns and rainbows when your book comes out.

The 2021 Netflix film, A Castle For Christmas, featured Brooke Shields as an American author who went to Scotland and fell in love with a castle she wanted to buy.

Yeah, right. If you really must take your cues about your impending authorial career from a movie about a writer, maybe just watch Misery, instead.