I’ve been writing for a decade. I was an idiot at the beginning. I thought I’d write books, and those books would deliver some kind of steady, if small, income over time. That was the case until 2016.

Amazon became pay-to-play for authors, though most people don’t know that. Facebook became pay-to-play for everyone. So I went from hitting the NYT bestseller list one year to watching my sales flatline the next. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness in 2016 and did 2 rounds of chemo while trying to launch a novel that died the day it came out. Every single person in my life told me to quit writing except my husband.

Because I was 5 figures in debt from my failed book launch, I traveled America and met thousands of people while I was on chemo and steroids. I was batshit crazy and out of my mind most of the time, but I held it together in front of groups (I hope.) I didn’t care how sick I was or how many people told me no, I was going to dig out of the hole billionaires and health problems dealt me.

By 2020, I had 5 figures of paid speaking engagements lined up for the first time, because I realized that I would never be able to outwit the algorithm and beat the house to get my books seen. My publicist and I worked on this for months and came into that year upbeat about the future.

We all remember what happened in 2020.

So I hunkered down and wrote a novel-as-warning about Christian Nationalism and what it does to people. I pitched it in 2021, because you know, America was having LOTS of experience with Christian Nationalism. I was sure it would resonate. It was rejected over 50 times.

BUT WAIT. A big agent told me I should change it into a memoir, because my NYT bestseller is a memoir. He could sell a memoir about my growing up in Christian Nationalism with a narcissist mother. Even though I did not want to write that book, I put together a book proposal, because I still believed this message needed to get out to Americans

That book was rejected for the final time in November 2023 because just like everything else in America, the publishing industry is about profit and nothing else.

I am the doyenne of asking people for a seat at the table and being told no. That doesn’t stop me from getting up and asking again.

So here I am on Substack, trying to convince whoever will listen to take this seriously and vote for democracy. While I sometimes get frustrated, I’ve been hearing no or nothing or “not you” for a long, long time, and that doesn’t stop me from opening my mouth and asking again.

I said all that to say the 2 year model doesn’t really work anymore. I learned I had to have my foot on the gas pedal every day, all the time. I couldn’t rely on anyone else. As soon as I stopped pushing my work, it died. Algorithms constantly change what people see such that we can plan whole book launches around rules that change the day we launch, and we’ll have no idea until we see the failure. Not to mention all the other drama vying for eyeballs and attention.

Doing work like this is a full-time, every day, never-let-up job, for as long as one has it in them. Which is why so many people burn out and quit. It’s why I’m grateful for therapy and tools to tend to my mental health. And it’s why I have no problem now raising my hand and saying, “Please help.”