Readers!
Ten years ago, I published my memoir Running: A Love Story. I’m proud of it. I told my story, and I think it helped a lot of people, especially women who have been held down by abusive men, and knew they deserved better.
But it was, by every other metric, a bust. Of course I can’t judge all projects based on profits, but if you saw this January piece about my income over time, you know I took a two-year financial hit around the writing, publication and promotion of it, in part because of personal stuff going on, but also because the book took away time from paying work. And the advance? A pittance. I’ve made a lot more from my self-published ebooks than any traditionally published book I’ve written.
Despite all this, I thought maybe the next book would be better, but there hasn’t been a next book, because the reality of the publishing world is that despite all my best efforts, Running: A Love Story did not sell well enough for me to get another deal.
Trust me, I tried. My agent for that book sent out the next proposal to a handful of people and gave up (when, really, it seemed she thought I was too small time for her and didn’t have the courage to dump me herself). Then I had a proposal in 2023 that agents fought over, and it didn’t sell either. Even from editors who liked it, the feedback had one through line: the last book was enough of a problem for their sales people to say no.
And yet!!! This year I was foolish enough to try again with another non-fiction book project, because an agent told me if I just wrote something good enough, we could get around that roadblock. So I moved ahead, basing it mostly on research and writing I’ve already done. But I didn’t even get to submission this time. She didn’t like it, and wanted me to write a different sample chapter that would involve weeks of unpaid reporting and travel — again, with a very real chance that no one would consider it because of the performance of a book that I wrote 10 years ago.
This is probably not what you want to read about book publishing. But this newsletter is about writing, work life balance, and making money with your words, and that is part of this. This last go round solidified that I’d rather spend my free time doing things that make me happy, like traveling, learning a new language and running with a bunch of weirdos in the woods, than trying to prove myself to an industry that keeps telling me I’m not good enough to be part of their club. Because even before the running memoir, I had another complete zero, where an editor approached me about writing her idea, then after seeing it, had me revise her idea, and still rejected it. And I was told to be flattered that she asked me at all, as if the very real time investment is just something I should keep floating on my own, even though I don’t have a backstop of a spouse’s salary or a trust fund to keep gambling on books that probably won’t happen.
When I got this last no, I cried, then went into my bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror to pull a Jack Handy, and said: Listen, Jen A. Miller. You are a professional writer. You get paid to talk to cool people and write cool things, all from the house that you bought with your money that you made for being very good at this. You are not a failure, and you’re going to be fine.
I had to do that to remind myself that not being successful in one segment of writing, where having a lot of TikTok followers means more than two decades of writing experience, does not mean I’m a bad person, or that I’m a bad writer either.
Maybe I’ll rethink things if I hit the lottery (even though I don’t gamble) or when I retire (thanks to the money I have saved and invested via my freelance work). I might do another ebook. But for now I’m done wasting my good time, effort, and writing on a dream that has only brought me mental and financial pain. If a publisher comes to me with a contract and a check, fine. But I’m done prostrating myself to an industry that has treated me like dirt, over someone else’s idea of what success in writing looks like.
Does it suck to admit this? It sure does. But it’s become more important to me to develop as a person and citizen of the world than as a writer. Just like happened after I gave up a weekly spot in The New York Times, I have felt freer since letting this go.
When I was a teenager, I wrote in my diary that I didn’t want to work in an office, and I didn’t want to be a mom. Maybe if I’d taken a boring desk job, or married some mediocre man, I could spend time on book proposals without worrying I’d lose my house (though every man I’ve ever seriously dated expected me to curtail my writing career to become his sub-floor. No thanks). I’ve build a career that has allowed me independence beyond my teenage self’s wildest dreams. It’s worth celebrating.
P.S. I wrote this a few weeks ago. I thought I’d want to tone it down, or not publish it at all. Nope. I’ve got convictions, don’t I?
Recent Bylines
“The power of data in laboratory medicine,” Clinical Laboratory News
What I’m Watching
- The Big Short. Sure. Why not. Why not relive the story behind the Great Recession, which I covered after it happened. Maybe that’s why I never watched this before. And yes as everyone said, it’s extremely good at explaining a hard to understand thing that ruined lives. As depressing as this story is, and how banks continued to rig the system after defrauding the country, the guy who called the subprime mortgage meltdown says AI is next. Life’s fun.
- The Running Man. Do I wish I saw this Edgar Wright remake in theaters? I’m 50/50 on it. The movie’s fine but not great, and at a time when I’m cutting back on costs, I might have thought it wasn’t worth it. Thank you to the library though, for always being stacked with new DVDs. It’s a great collection for a small town library.
- Small Things Like These. Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in New Ross, Ireland in 1985. He notices something’s not quite right in town, and debates if he should step forward or get along to go along, and ignore a tragedy in their midst. That something not quite right is the town is home to one of the Magdalene Laundries, workhouses where about 30,000 girls (some deemed insane, some who were pregnant out of wedlock) were sent. Some died. Others had their babies taken away. Babies died too — in 2025, Ireland excavated one such mass grave, where 800 infants were buried in a septic tank. Furlong was raised by a single mother, who we see in flashbacks, which adds to the weight of his decision. The movie is a remind of what can happen when a religious institution (the Catholic Church) act above the law. Philomena — book and movie — are also about this, and heartbreaking.
Nail Polish of the Week
This Color’s Making Waves by OPI. This looks blue in some lights, green in others. I kept calling it the “Ariel” color because it changes like that of a mermaid’s tale.
Until next time!
Jen A. Miller (she/her)
Notes from a Hired Pen ebook series
Like this post? Buy Jen a Coffee!
Book links are affiliate links.
Letting this dream go is liberating. Publishing is such a weird business–and it has made it clear that it does not want me in it. :)
Jen, I admire you endlessly for letting us behind the curtain of the freelance world, for sharing your income (!!) and for sharing this loss. It’s relatable and brave to put it out there.