The WMF Archives

By Kristen Fischer

When I look back on it, it’s kind of a miracle. I published two books in two years—and am living to tell about it. What is really interesting is that I only started to recently give myself credit for this huge feat.

First came Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs. Motivated by a slew of rejection letters telling me the market was too narrow for this book, I took things into my own hands and began publishing with iUniverse. Self-publishing is its own beast, but I knew I’d be up to the task of promoting this book and getting it out there. I had the time to devote because I had recently started working from home as a copywriter, and business was going good.

Then came an ad about pitching a book to a small publisher in California. They had a full roster of reference-based college guides and were looking to expand into a non-fiction market. At the time, I was 26 and just settling into my career. I deemed that my “quarterlife crisis” was over and knew I was ready to tell my story—and the stories of other college grads. The idea for Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life was born, so I queried on a whim. The publisher accepted the idea.

So there I was. Working hard to get the first book out and keep up publicity all while shaking when I signed the contract for my second book. This one had an advance…and a deadline. This was serious stuff. How was I going to do it all and keep my copywriting business going?

The truth is that we sometimes can’t do it all. While I wish that I had more time to get some more press closer to the launch date of CSE, the book has blossomed. It’s not huge. But I made the money back that I paid to publish it, so that’s a plus, right? Looking back, I could have never said no to my second book’s deal—that would have just been stupid. So I decided to work on both at the same time. (The first was written by the time I had started the second, but publicity for the first took place when I was trying to pen RRR. I had to sacrifice a lot of the publicity work for CSE because, well, I had a “real” book deal with RRR. So it took precedence.)

You’ll hate me for saying this, but the writing was not so hard. Both books were based off questionnaires that others filled out, so most of it was merely getting everything to flow together, and then including some of the quotes from those surveys. Easy? No. But this style of writing complimented my innate news-reporting ability. It just flowed. Not always perfectly, but yes, it really just happened organically. To my surprise, the publisher of my second book loved my work (which was good to have some sort of barometer to hold my writing against, since they had published books before and I had only self-published CSE).

Even if you don’t have two books being published close in date together, getting the word out about books is hard stuff—even if you have the big agent and all. In this case, I did what I could to finish the first book, start promoting it, write the second book, and then promote that. (The websites www.creativelyselfemployed.com and www.ramenrentresumes.com were born, as a result, closer in time than most siblings.) A lot of it overlapped and the hard part was keeping my business afloat, knowing that it was the source of income I needed to afford me the time to write. I couldn’t really devote as much time to the publicity of CSE. Likewise, when it came time to promote RRR I found that I was doing a lot of that myself, which was really hard. (But at least I wasn’t writing another book during that time. Being a “pusher,” I thought I should have been, though.)

It’s been two years since my second book was published, and I’ve only started writing a third book. Why? I needed a good break! Business has boomed for me and the past two years has been a different writing season devoted to that. Now I am feeling more centered about beginning to publish again. The prize? Honestly, I’d like to have an agent so I could place my third baby with a bigger publisher.

I don’t want to brag or sound like Superwoman here…that’s not my intent in telling you about my crazy publishing adventures. Instead, I want to say that sometimes things start happening with your career and it seems like a lot, but if you go with it you can really advance your career. Those two years are like a blur to me, but they gave me two books and a strong platform that continuously leads to more press and has helped give my business even more credibility.

After the books were done, I kept pushing myself to write. I had to have a third one out the next year, I thought. At that rate, I was on a book-a-year timeline. But nothing happened. I couldn’t even come up with an idea I really believed in, unlike my first two. It was hard taking a step back, knowing that it simply was not the right time for me to write.

So as I work on my third book and get back into the book scene, I hope other writers out there are inspired by my story. But most of all, I hope you realize that when life tells you it’s not time to write a certain thing for a while (in my case, books), take the break. I feel more recharged than ever having stopped pushing myself so hard and am clear-headed and ready to write—and be published—again. 



About Kristen Fischer
Kristen Fischer is a copywriter, author and journalist living at the Jersey Shore. Her work has been published by MediaBistro.com, College Bound magazine, Home Business magazine, and Yahoo HotJobs. To learn more about her, visit www.kristenfischer.com.

Guest Post: Two Books, Two Years