GLAD TO SEE YOU MADE IT! A Guest Post by Linda Williams Jackson

Over twenty years ago I received an email from a high school classmate with the subject line “Glad to see you made it!” Rather than feeling a sense of pride when I saw those words, I felt like a fraud. Word had gotten around my small hometown and spread far and wide among my former classmates who lived in various places across the U.S. that I had published a book. I had received multiple congratulatory emails from former classmates, but this is the only one that still lingers in my memory—not the actual body of the email itself—only the subject line: “Glad to see you made it!” Sure, I had published a book. But didn’t this fellow know that I had not truly “made it” since I had published the book myself? No publisher had offered me an advance against royalties and asked me to sign a contract giving them the exclusive right to publish my words. I had taken my own manuscript, formatted it into print-ready pages, mailed it off to a printer (Morris Publishing), and paid them $3500 to publish 1000 copies of my book The Lie That Binds. So, when my classmate elevated me to the status of having “made it,” I felt like a fraud. I felt as if I had robbed him of an accolade that he should have reserved for someone else—someone more worthy—perhaps a classmate who had actually “made it” as a published author.

Interestingly, the book did really well once I figured out my audience and began sending the book to middle school teachers. The Lie That Binds was required reading in multiple middle schools for several years. It was a local Barnes & Noble staff pick. I was featured in local newspapers and did interviews on TV and radio. I did book signings across the state of Mississippi at both indie bookstores and chain bookstores, including Books a Million. I did book signings and school visits in Tennessee and even Georgia. But guess what? I still felt like a fraud—like I hadn’t truly “made it” as my classmate had stated. Because even though I self-published The Lie That Binds and a few other books, I still longed to have a traditional publisher validate me as a writer by offering me a contract. I even began querying agents with my self-published book, hoping that my meager success might entice someone to represent me.

It didn’t. 

For the record, it takes MAJOR success for an agent to be interested in representing a self-published book—not minor, localized success like what I experienced. 

In the meantime, I wrote reading assessment passages for educational publishers, and I sold stories to Chicken Soup for the Soul books: Just for Teenagers, Here Comes the Bride, Dreams and Premonitions, and The Power of Positive. I even won a writing contest that netted me $1000. Did I feel as if I had made it yet?

Nope. Not even close.

Why? Because traditional publishing had yet to validate me.

Fast forward to the spring of 2015. After writing several new manuscripts—querying one of those manuscripts for five years with no success—I finally landed an agent with my historical manuscript which became the book Midnight Without a Moon. Through my new agent, I scored a two-book contract (and a very nice advance) with a major publisher. 

Did I feel as if I had made it yet?

Why yes—yes, I did. As proof, here’s a picture of meaning looking all smug about it. (Just kidding. I had braces, so I rarely smiled in photos between the spring of 2015 and the fall of 2018.)

Midnight Without a Moon, while not a major success story like a few other 2017 debut novels, was a pretty big deal. My publisher sent me to the 2016 ALA summer conference. I was interviewed on NPR. Midnight Without a Moon was an Amazon editor pick for the month of January. It was the number one new release in all three categories for both the hardcover and the e-book for the first few days after its release. Someone added it to the 2018 Mock Newbery list on Goodreads a couple of months later. It was an Amazon Best Book of the Year from January-June. It was added to several other Mock Newbery lists. It even got discussed on the Heavy Medal (Newbery) blog!

Folks were talking about my book! Yes, friends, I had finally made it!

Or, had I?

When the sequel A Sky Full of Stars was released one year later, it didn’t get the same attention as its predecessor. (It seems that sequels rarely do.) And, when Midnight Without a Moon didn’t get any major award recognition on our famous kidlit awards day, sales for it (and the chatter about it) slowly diminished. You know what slow sales mean? Slow sales make it harder to sell another book.

Let’s bring that picture back:

Now it looks like I’m thinking, “Man, I thought I had made it when I got that two-book deal. Now nobody wants to publish me.”

Eventually, five years after that initial two-book deal, I sold another project. This time it was a one-book deal, but it came with a decent advance. Not only did I sell another project that year—2020—but Midnight Without a Moon (three years later) landed on several state lists and it was an Amazon Prime Book Box selection. The sales soared!

Here’s another picture of me, smiling and soaring:

This one says, “Oh, yeah! I’m back, baby!” 

Or, was I?

While it didn’t experience the same release fanfare as Midnight Without a Moon, The Lucky Ones did quite well for itself. It was a finalist for several awards and made several state reading lists. It also got the attention of Kate DiCamillo, who twice gave it a public shoutout. Oh, and let’s not forget that Good Housekeeping magazine named it one of the best 50 kids’ books of all time.

But was all that enough to get me another book deal?

Unfortunately, not quite. Because, well, sales matter. A lot. My book sales are decent, but they’re not soaring through the roof like that huge boost with Midnight Without a Moon in 2020. And this—the lack of soaring sales—can be a bit of a problem in traditional publishing, my friends.

By now you may be wondering (I would be if I were you), Is that why she has chosen to self-publish again—all these years later—even after having reached the holy grail of traditional publishing—because she couldn’t sell another book?

Surprisingly, the answer to that question is no. I’m an optimist, so I strongly believe that I will sell another book to a traditional publisher. I chose to self-publish my latest book Saving Jimmy for the same reason I self-published my first book The Lie That Binds. I self-published because I wanted to. I self-published because I actually enjoyed the process of creating a book from manuscript to final product. I self-published because I could. I also self-published because at this point in my writing career, even though I haven’t struck gold or won any major award, I finally feel like I have made it. I self-published because I have confidence in my writing and in the story that I have told. Interestingly, the latter is the same reason I self-published the first time, twenty-two years ago. Only this time, if a former classmate emails me with the subject line: “Glad to see you made it,” I won’t feel like a fraud, because, friend, I have made it—not because of any accolades or publisher advances—but because people are finding joy in the words I put on the page—just as they did all those years ago when I published a little book called The Lie That Binds.

While on a school visit in 2017 for Midnight Without a Moon, a teacher in Jackson, MS asked me to sign her well-loved copy of The Lie That Binds. For me to act as if my self-published books aren’t as important as my traditionally published books would be an insult to all those readers who loved them. My classmate was right. 2015 was not the year I made it because a publisher offered me a two-book deal. 2002 was the year I made it, because it was the year I offered myself a multi-book deal.

As I stated earlier, I’m not done being traditionally published either. So I’ll be sure to let y’all know when I get my next multi-book deal. 😊

Linda Williams Jackson is the author of award-winning middle grade novels centered around some of Mississippi’s most important historical moments. Her first book, Midnight Without a Moon, which is centered around the Emmett Till murder, was an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, a Jane Addams Honor Book for Peace and Social Justice, and a Washington Post Summer Book Club Selection. Her second book, A Sky Full of Stars, the sequel to Midnight Without a Moon, received a Malka Penn Honor for an outstanding children’s book addressing human rights issues and was a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year. Her most recent book, The Lucky Ones, was inspired by Robert Kennedy’s 1967 Poverty Tour of the Mississippi Delta and is loosely based on the author’s own family’s experiences. The Lucky Ones was recently recognized by Good Housekeeping magazine as one of the best 50 kids’ books of all time. Additional accolades for The Lucky Ones include Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Youth Book Award Winner, Foreword Reviews Indies Award Winner, New-York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize Finalist, Common Sense Media’s Best Six Kids’ Books of 2022, Week Junior Magazine Best Seven Kids’ Books of 2022, Cooperative Children’s Book Center Best Books of the Year, and a Bank Street College Best Books of the Year. 

Linda Williams Jackson is proud to still call Mississippi home.