That Green Monster's On Board

In Which We Talk About Author Jealousy 🧌

You know that feeling when you’re walking down the hallways of a cruiseship and you get peeks into the rooms that have more square footage, bigger balconies, and layouts where you can’t see the toilet from the bed? You’re like, “I’m stuck on this ship too and boy howdy would it be nice to have a little more legroom.” The thought is quickly followed by a little flare of warmth in your chest, and you and I both know it’s not heartburn from overeating at the All You Can Eat Buffet.

It’s jealousy.

Ah, jealousy. It’s something that strikes writers regularly, like is happening for one of our fellow author-passengers right now who writes (brackets indicate brief paraphrasing so as to avoid any identifying details in the vent):

I never thought I would ever be a writer.  I would write short stories for my own entertainment and share with friends and family. In 2019, I took an idea I had and wrote a short story [that I expanded into a novel and self-published]. I wanted to continue writing but didn’t have the money to pay for editing and proofreading. I am [now published by] a small publishing company. I have four books I’ve published with them. They love my books and tell me that I’m one of their most talented authors, but sales are dismal.  Meanwhile one of my best friends has written several books with a big time publishing company. They’re getting huge advances and now [they have achieved a huge milestone]. I can’t help but be so jealous of their success when I now feel my books are of equal quality. Yet they’re raking in the big $$ on rights and contracts for future books while I’m making pennies on the dollar. I love my publisher and they have been great to me, giving me lots of room to explore new ideas, but I would love the recognition authors like you and my friend have. I write as a hobby and because I enjoy it. I never expected to get rich, but it would be nice :) What would you do if you were me?  

This is such a good vent, Looking For More, because it is so damn relatable. So many authors (I’m one of them!) have dealt with moments in their publishing journey where they are yearning to have what other, seemingly more successful, authors have. First and foremost, jealousy is a totally natural feeling, and don’t feel shame for feeling this way. It can be an excellent motivator, but it all depends on how you frame it.

What’s important to be aware of is that your desire to achieve the same accomplishments of your fellow writers can easily turn into *begrudging* another author for getting those things instead of you. That’s when I would yell ICEBERG, DEAD AHEAD! and try as hard as I might to steer your ship away from crashing into that huge chunk of Bitter Betty Ice (maybe the name of a new hard seltzer we should stock in the Ventorship bars). We are all out here floundering around in these author seas, and for me, it’s just all the wrong energy to sneer at another author for hitting their swimming stride. That being said, I want to make it clear that I don’t think you are doing that here. You name it yourself when you say you can’t help but feel jealous. Just be sure you harness that jealousy for good, i.e. powering you to keep writing the next book.

One tip I have is to make sure I’m framing this productively in my mind. When I see another author hit a best-seller mark that I’d like to hit or getting an award that I’d like to receive, I make sure I think of it in my head as I someday hope to get (insert all the praise and sales and awards here) rather than, I can’t believe (insert author who has those successes and worked just as hard to get them) got that instead of me. It’s more than okay to want career milestones that others have, but not so cute to wish whoever (whomever?) has it never got it to begin with. We can boost each other up along the way! And I promise you, when you celebrate others people’s wins, they will cheer so loudly for you when that win comes your way too. Many even go so far as to help you get a win however they can.

This may sound too “I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy”, but I’d say every time that author friend of yours gets a big win, celebrate the shit out of it and mean it. It is so freeing to enjoy someone else achieving a dream rather than festering in not having that for yourself. When I soak up success energy, it just spurs me on, and turns off that part of my brain that gets stuck in comparison mode which can then lead to doubting my own writing, and that’s a miserable rabbit hole I’d rather not get stuck in.

Okay, now that I’m done sounding like an after school special, here are a few practical tips/thoughts based on your vent that could maybe help you achieve getting those bigger milestones you mentioned:

First, GIVE YOURSELF THE BIGGEST FUCKING FIST PUMP OF YOUR LIFE! You’ve already written four novels and had those published. That’s huge! That shows you’ve got the drive and ability to not only finish a manuscript, but to revise and edit and polish the hell out of it to turn it into something others want to read. That is a SUPER POWER, and you’ve got it, baby!

Next, there are pros and cons to every size publisher, and I am in no way saying that size of a publisher is an indication of your talent or the caliber of that publisher’s novels. But something to keep in mind is that smaller publishers tend to have fewer financial resources (and unfortunately sometimes less pull in the reviewing and bookselling sections of our industry) to get the word out about your books. So really, the comparisons between your author friend’s success at a big publisher versus yours at a smaller one aren’t exactly comparing Speedos to Speedos (I tried to come up with some swimsuit version of apples to apples here since we’re on a boat, but I think that’s too pelvis-focused).

It might be worth it to sub to larger publishers at this point so you can compare your experience more accurately. Remember, there will be cons going this way too. For example, some people feel larger publishers are more machine-like and you just become a cog in that machine and you might lose that feeling you have with your current publisher who has more of a back-and-forth with you. But you’ll never know until you try this out to see what feels more right for you. I know this path has so much outside of your control (unfortunately, we can’t just make the Big 5 publish our books), but it might be worth waiting a bit longer for your next book to come out until you find that bigger perfect publishing partner. I wasn’t sure based on your vent whether or not you had an agent, and if you look for bigger publishers, I’d suggest getting that agent first. Many pubs will not take unagented submissions.

Lastly—and I just feel like I have to say this one more time—do not beat yourself up for being jealous. It’s so natural to want more, to want recognition, to want financial success from our art. If anyone (including yourself) tries to guilt you for that, I don’t think they’re being honest with themselves about how human these “negative” emotions really are. You’re human, Looking For More, and really that’s what we’re trying to capture in our books to begin with, right?

-JJ

What about you, Ventorship passengers? Any advice on how to harness jealousy for good? Or specific tips on how our ventor might be able to gain some more traction with their work? Feel free to put it in the comments, or write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com and I’ll anonymously include your words on this post.

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If you’d like to vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. I’ll give you my take in a post, and we’ll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. You’ll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think you’re going to be buoyed up by author love and support as we realize we really are all in the same boat 🛳️